he read with a low,
solemn voice a chapter in the Bible. A few minutes of silence
succeeded, as if a wordless prayer was going upward upon the still
wings of thought, which made no audible beating in their flight. It
was very impressive; an incident that I shall ever hold among the
most interesting of all I met with on my walk. They were not
brothers evidently, but most likely strangers thrown together on the
railroad. They doubtless came from different directions, but, from
Highlands or Lowlands, they came from Bible-lighted homes, whose
"voices of the night" were blended with the breathings of religious
life and instruction. Separated from such homes, they had agreed to
make this one after the same spiritual pattern, barring the parental
presence and teaching.

The next day after breakfast, took leave of my kind cottage hosts,
exchanging good wishes for mutual happiness. Went out of the
amphitheatre of Strathspey by a gateway into another, surrounded by
mountains less lofty and entirely covered with heather. For several
miles beyond Carr Bridge I passed over the wildest moorland. The
road was marked by posts about ten feet high, painted white within
two feet of the top and black above. These are planted about
fifteen rods apart, to guide the traveller in the drifting and
blinding snows of winter. The road over this cold, desolate waste
exceeded anything I ever saw in America, even in the most
fashionable suburbs of New York and Boston. It was as smooth and
hard as a cement floor. Here on this treeless wild, I met several
men at work trimming the edges of the road by a line, with as much
precision and care as if they were laying out an aisle in a flower
garden. After a walk of about seventeen miles, I reached Freeburn
Inn about the middle of the afternoon, and as it began to rain and
to threaten bad weather for walking, I concluded to stop there for
the night, and found good quarters.

The rain continued in showers, and I feared I should be unable to
reach Inverness to spend the Sabbath. There was a cattle fair at
the inn, and a considerable number of farmers and dealers came
together notwithstanding the weather. Indeed, there were nearly as
many men and boys as animals on the ground. A score or more had
come in, each leading or driving a single cow or calf. The cattle
generally were evidently of the Gaelic origin and antecedents--
little, chubby, scraggy creatures, of all colors, but mostly black,