rail or coach, impossible that any one could go perilously astray among
"those little hills."

Let them try it, and discover their ignorance, as they learn the
immensity of the wild spaces in Scotland and Wales, and how valley
succeeds valley, hill comes down to hill, with so great a resemblance
one to the other, that in a short time the brain is overwhelmed by a
mist of confusion, and that greatest of horrors,--one not known,
fortunately, to many,--the horror of feeling lost, robs the sufferer of
power to act calmly and consistently, and he goes farther and farther
astray, and often into perils which may end in death.

Max Blande wandered on, looking inward nearly all the time, and backward
at the scenes of the past day, so that it was not long before he had
diverged from the beaten track and was trudging on over the short grass
and among the heather. Then great corners of crags and loose stones
rose in his way, forcing him to turn to right or left to get by. Then
he would come close up to some precipitous, unclimbable face of the
hill, and strike away again, to find his course perhaps stopped by a
patch of pale green moss dotted with cotton rushes, among which his feet
sank, and the water splashed with suggestions of his sinking completely
in if he persevered.

But he kept on, now in one direction, now in another, striving to keep
straight, with the one idea in his mind to get right away from Dunroe,
and certainly increasing the distance, but in a weary, devious way, till
he seemed to wake up all at once to the fact that it was growing dark,
and that a thick mist was gradually creeping round him, and he was
growing wet, as well as so faint and weary that he could hardly plod
along.

Max stopped short by a block of stone, against which he struck, and only
saved himself from falling by stretching out his hands.

The stone suggested resting for a few minutes, and he sat down and
listened, but the silence was awful. No cry of bird or bleat of sheep
fell upon his ear, and the mist and darkness had in a few minutes so
shut him in that he could distinguish nothing half a dozen yards away.

The sensation of restfulness was, however, pleasant; and he sat there
for some time, trying to think of his plans, but in a confused way, for
the incidents that had taken place at Dunroe would intrude as soon as he
began to make plans.

"How stupid I am!" he cried, suddenly starting up with a shiver of cold,
for the damp mist s