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for your own, do not think of it; it will be no disappointment to me to remain with you here-and I shudder at the thought of your fainting on the summit. Be advised, my dear sir, be advised

North. Well, then, be it so- -I am not obstinate; but such another day for the ascent there may not be during the summer. On just such a day I made the ascent some half-century ago. I took it from Tyanuilt-having walked that morning from Dalmally, some dozen miles, for a breathing on level ground, before facing the steepish shoulder that roughens into Loch Etive. The fox-hunter from Gleno gave me his company with his hounds and terriers nearly half-way up, and after killing some cubs we parted-not without a tinful of the creature at the Fairies' Well

Buller. A tinful of the creature at the Fairies' Well!

North. Yea-a tinful of the creature at the Fairies' Well. Now I am a total abstinent.

Buller. A total abstinent!

North. By heavens! he echoes me.

Pleasant, but mourn

ful to the soul is the memory of joys that are past! A tinful of the unchristened creature to the health of the Silent People. Oh! Buller, there are no Silent People now.

Buller. In your company, sir, I am always willing to be a listener.

North. Well, on I flew as on wings.

Buller. What! Up Cruachan?

North. On feet, then, if you will; but the feet of a deer. Buller. On all-fours?

North. Yes-sometimes on all-fours. On all-fours, like a frog in his prime, clearing tiny obstructions with a spang. On all-fours, like an ourang-outang, who, in difficult places, brings his arms into play. On all-fours, like the

Buller. I cry you mercy.

North. Without palpitation of the heart; without determination of blood to the head; without panting; without dizziness; with merely a slight acceleration of the breath, and now and then something like a gasp after a run to a knowe which we foresaw as a momentary resting-place-we felt that we were conquering Cruachan! Lovely level places, like platforms-level as if water had formed them, flowing up just so far continually, and then ebbing back to some unimaginable sea-awaited our arrival, that on them we might lie down, and from beds of state survey our empire, for our empire it was felt to be, far away into the lowlands, with many a hill between-many a hill, that, in its own neighborhood, is believed to be a mountain-just as many a man of moderate mental dimensions is believed by those who live beneath his shade to be of the first order of magnitude, and with funeral honors is interred.

Buller. Well for him that he is a hill at all-eminent on a flat, or among humbler undulations. All is comparative.

North. Just so. From a site on a mountain's side-far from the summit-the ascender hath sometimes a sublimeroften a lovelier vision-than from its most commanding peak. Yet still he has the feeling of ascension-stifle that, and the discontent of insufficiency dwarfs and darkens all that lies below.

Buller. Words to the wise.

North. We fear to ascend higher lest we should lose what we comprehend: yet we will ascend higher, though we know the clouds are gathering, and we are already enveloped in mist. But there were no clouds-no mist on that day-and the secret top of Cruachan was clear as a good man's conscience, and the whole world below like a promised land.

Buller. Let us go-let us go-let us go.

North. All knowledge, my dear boy, may be likened to

stupendous ranges of mountain-clear and clouded, smooth and precipitous; and you or I in youth assail them in joy and pride of soul, not blind, but blindfolded often, and ignorant of their inclination; so that we often are met by a beetling cliff with its cataract, and must keep ascending and descending, ignorant of our whereabouts, and summit-seeking in vain. Yet all the while are we glorified. In maturer mind, when experience is like an instinct, we ascertain levels without a theodolite, and know assuredly where dwell the peaks. We know how to ascend-sideways or right on; we know which are midway heights; we can walk in mist and cloud as surely as in light, and we learn to know the Inaccessible.

Buller. I fear you will fatigue yourself—

North. Or another image. You sail down a stream, my good Buller, which widens as it flows, and will lead through inland seas—or lochs--down to the mighty ocean; what that is I need not say: you sail down it, sometimes with hoisted sail-sometimes with oars-on a quest or mission all undefined; but often anchoring where no need is, and leaping ashore, and engaging in pursuits or pastimes forbidden or vain -with the natives

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North. Nay-adopting their dress-though dress it be none at all—and becoming one of themselves-naturalized; forgetting your mission clean out of mind! Fishing and hunting with the natives

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North. The natives-when you ought to have been pursuing your voyage on-on-on. Such are youth's pastimes all. But you had not deserted-not you: and you return of your own accord to this ship.

Buller. What ship?

North. The ship of life-leaving some to lament you, who

knew you only as a jolly mariner, who was bound afar! They believed that you had drawn up your pinnace for ever on that shore, in that lovely little haven, among weeds and palms-unknowing that you would relaunch her some day soon, and, bounding in her over the billows, rejoin your ship, waiting for you in the offing, and revisit the simple natives no more!

Buller. Methinks I understand now your mysterious meaning. North. You do. But where was I?

Buller. Ascending Cruachan, and near the summit.

North. On the summit. Not a whit tired-not a bit fatigued; strong as ten-active as twenty ownselves on the flat-divinely drunk on draughts of ether-happier a thousand times, greater and more glorious, than Jupiter, with all his gods, enthroned on Olympus.

Buller. Moderately speaking.

North. In imagination I hear him barking now as he barked then a sharp, short, savage, angry, and hungry bark—

Buller. What? A dog? A Fox?

North. No-no-no. An Eagle-the Golden Eagle from Ben-Slarive, known-no mistaking him to generations of Shepherds for a hundred years.

Buller. Do you see him?

North. Now I do. I see his eyes-for he came-he comes sughing close by me-and there he shoots up in terror a thousand feet into the sky.

Buller. I did not know the bird was so timid

North. He is not timid-he is bold; but an Eagle does not like to come all at once within ten yards of an unexpected man-any more than you would like suddenly to face a ghost. Buller. What brought him there?

North. Wings nine feet wide.

Buller. Has he no sense of smell?

North. What do you mean, sir?

Buller. No offence.

North. He has. But we have not always all our senses about us, Buller, nor our wits either he had been somewhat scared, a league up Glen Etive, by the Huntsman of Glenothe scent of powder was in his nostrils; but fury follows fear, and in a minute I heard his bark again—as now I hear it—on the highway to Benlura.

Buller. He must have had enormous talons.

North. My hand is none of the smallest―

Buller. God bless you, my dear sir-give me a grasp.
North. There.

Buller. Oh! thumbikins!

North. And one of his son's talons-whom I shot-was twice the length of mine; his yellow knobby loof at least as broad-and his leg like my wrist. He killed a man. Knocked him down a precipice, like a cannon-ball. He had the credit of it all over the country-but I believe his wife did the business, for she was half-again as big as himself; and no devil like a she-devil fighting for her imp.

Buller. Did you ever rob an Eyrie, sir?

North. Did you ever rob a lion's den? No, no, Buller. I never except on duty-placed my life in danger. I have been in many dangerous-looking places among the Mountains, but a cautious activity ruled all my movements. I scanned my cliff before I scaled him-and as for jumping chasmsthough I had a spring in me-I looked imaginatively down the abyss, and then sensibly turned its flank where it leaned on the greensward, and the liberated streamlet might be forded, without swimming, by the silly sheep.

Buller. And are all those stories lies?

North. All. I have sometimes swam a loch or a river in my clothes, but never except when they lay in my way, or

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