r-skirted river, as we turned from off the road that winds along
the Kyle of the Dornoch Frith into the bleak gorge of Strathcarron.
The shepherd's cottage, in which we purposed passing the night, lay
high up in the valley, where the lofty sides--partially covered at
that period by the remnants of an ancient forest--approach so near
each other, and rise so abruptly, that for the whole winter quarter
the sun never falls on the stream below. There were still some ten or
twelve miles of broken road before us. The moon in its first quarter
hung low over the hills, dimly revealing their rough outline, and
throwing its tinge of faint bronze on the broken clumps of wood in the
hollows. A keen frost had set in; and a thick trail of fog-rime,
raised by its influence in the calm, and which at the height of some
eighty or a hundred feet hung over the river--scarce less defined in
its margin than the river itself, for it winded wherever the stream
winded, and ran straight as an arrow wherever the stream ran
straight--occupied the whole length of the valley, like an enormous
snake lying uncoiled in its den. The numerous turf cottages on either
side were invisible in the darkness, save that ever and anon the brief
twinkle of a light indicated their existence and their places. In a
recess of the stream the torch of some adventurous fisher now gleamed
red on rock and water, now suddenly disappeared, eclipsed by the
overhanging brushwood, or by some jutting angle of the bank. The
distant roar of the stream mingled sullenly in the calm, with its
nearer and hoarser dash, as it chafed on the ledges below, filling the
air with a wild music, that seemed the appropriate voice of the
impressive scenery from amid which it arose. It was late ere we
reached the shepherd's cottage--a dark, raftered, dimly-lighted
building of turf and stone. The weather for several weeks before had
been rainy and close, and the flocks of the inmate had been thinned by
the common scourge of the sheep-farmer at such seasons on marshy and
unwholesome farms. The rafters were laden with skins besmeared with
blood, that dangled overhead to catch the conservative influences of
the smoke; and on a rude plank table below there rose two tall
pyramids of dark-coloured joints of braxy mutton, heaped up each on a
corn riddle. The shepherd--a Highlander of colossal proportions, but
hard and thin, and worn by the cares and toils of at least sixty
winters--sat moodily beside the fi