The next morning was fine, for the snow had been intermittent, and had
soon melted except in the high corries. True, it was deceptive weather,
for the wind had gone to the rainy south-west, and the masses of cloud
on that horizon boded ill for the afternoon. But some days' inaction had
made me keen for a chance of sport, so I rose with the shepherd and set
out for the day.
He asked me where I proposed to begin.
I told him the tarn called the Loch o' the Threshes, which lies over the
back of the Muneraw on another watershed. It is on the ground of the
Rhynns Forest, and I had fished it of old from the Forest House. I knew
the merits of the trout, and I knew its virtues in a south-west wind, so
I had resolved to go thus far afield.
The shepherd heard the name in silence. "Your best road will be ower
that rig, and syne on to the water o' Caulds. Keep abune the moss till
ye come to the place they ca' the Nick o' the Threshes. That will take
ye to the very loch-side, but it's a lang road and a sair."
The morning was breaking over the bleak hills. Little clouds drifted
athwart the corries, and wisps of haze fluttered from the peaks. A great
rosy flush lay over one side of the glen, which caught the edge of the
sluggish bog-pools and turned them to fire. Never before had I seen the
mountain-land so clear, for far back into the east and west I saw
mountain-tops set as close as flowers in a border, black crags seamed
with silver lines which I knew for mighty waterfalls, and below at my
feet the lower slopes fresh with the dewy green of spring. A name stuck
in my memory from the last night's talk.
"Where are the Scarts of the Muneraw?" I asked.
The shepherd pointed to the great hill which bears the name, and which
lies, a huge mass, above the watershed.
"D'ye see yon corrie at the east that runs straucht up the side? It
looks a bit scart, but it's sae deep that it's aye derk at the bottom
o't. Weel, at the tap o' the rig it meets anither corrie that runs doun
the ither side, and that one they ca' the Scarts. There is a sort o'
burn in it that flows intil the Dule and sae intil the Aller, and,
indeed, if ye were gaun there it wad be from Aller Glen that your best
road wad lie. But it's an ill bit, and ye'll be sair guidit if ye
try't."
There he left me and went across the glen, while I struck upwards over
the ridge. At the top I halted and looked down on the wide glen of the
Caulds, which there is little better than a bog, but lower down grows
into a green pastoral valley. The great Muneraw still dominated the
landscape, and the black scaur on its side seemed blacker than before.
The place fascinated me, for in that fresh morning air the shepherd's
fears seemed monstrous. "Some day," said I to myself, "I will go and
explore the whole of that mighty hill." Then I descended and struggled
over the moss, found the Nick, and in two hours' time was on the loch's
edge.
I have little in the way of good to report of the fishing. For perhaps
one hour the trout took well; after that they sulked steadily for the
day. The promise, too, of fine weather had been deceptive. By midday the
rain was falling in that soft soaking fashion which gives no hope of
clearing. The mist was down to the edge of the water, and I cast my
flies into a blind sea of white. It was hopeless work, and yet from a
sort of ill-temper I stuck to it long after my better judgment had
warned me of its folly. At last, about three in the afternoon, I struck
my camp, and prepared myself for a long and toilsome retreat.
And long and toilsome it was beyond anything I had ever encountered. Had
I had a vestige of sense I would have followed the burn from the loch
down to the Forest House. The place was shut up, but the keeper would
gladly have given me shelter for the night. But foolish pride was too
strong in me. I had found my road in mist before, and could do it again.
Before I got to the top of the hill I had repented my decision; when I
got there I repented it more. For below me was a dizzy chaos of grey;
there was no landmark visible; and before me I knew was the bog through
which the Caulds Water twined. I had crossed it with some trouble in the
morning, but then I had light to pick my steps. Now I could only stumble
on, and in five minutes I might be in a bog-hole, and in five more in a
better world.
But there was no help to be got from hesitation, so with a rueful
courage I set off. The place was if possible worse than I had feared.
Wading up to the knees with nothing before you but a blank wall of mist
and the cheerful consciousness that your next step may be your
last--such was my state for one weary mile. The stream itself was high,
and rose to my armpits, and once and again I only saved myself by a
violent leap backwards from a pitiless green slough. But at last it was
past, and I was once more on the solid ground of the hillside.
Now, in the thick weather I had crossed the glen much lower down than in
the morning, and the result was that the hill on which I stood was one
of the giants which, with the Muneraw for centre, guard the watershed.
Had I taken the proper way, the Nick o' the Threshes would have led me
to the Caulds, and then once over the bog a little ridge was all that
stood between me and the glen of Farawa. But instead I had come a wild
cross-country road, and was now, though I did not know it, nearly as far
from my destination as at the start.
Well for me that I did not know, for I was wet and dispirited, and had I
not fancied myself all but home, I should scarcely have had the energy
to make this last ascent. But soon I found it was not the little ridge I
had expected. I looked at my watch and saw that it was five o'clock.
When, after the weariest climb, I lay on a piece of level ground which
seemed the top, I was not surprised to find that it was now seven. The
darkening must be at hand, and sure enough the mist seemed to be
deepening into a greyish black. I began to grow desperate. Here was I on
the summit of some infernal mountain, without any certainty where my
road lay. I was lost with a vengeance, and at the thought I began to be
acutely afraid.
I took what seemed to me the way I had come, and began to descend
steeply. Then something made me halt, and the next instant I was lying
on my face trying painfully to retrace my steps. For I had found myself
slipping, and before I could stop, my feet were dangling over a
precipice with Heaven alone knows how many yards of sheer mist between
me and the bottom. Then I tried keeping the ridge, and took that to the
right, which I thought would bring me nearer home. It was no good trying
to think out a direction, for in the fog my brain was running round, and
I seemed to stand on a pin-point of space where the laws of the compass
had ceased to hold.
It was the roughest sort of walking, now stepping warily over acres of
loose stones, now crawling down the face of some battered rock, and now
wading in the long dripping heather. The soft rain had begun to fall
again, which completed my discomfort. I was now seriously tired, and,
like all men who in their day have bent too much over books, I began to
feel it in my back. My spine ached, and my breath came in short broken
pants. It was a pitiable state of affairs for an honest man who had
never encountered much grave discomfort. To ease myself I was compelled
to leave my basket behind me, trusting to return and find it, if I
should ever reach safety and discover on what pathless hill I had been
strayed. My rod I used as a staff, but it was of little use, for my
fingers were getting too numb to hold it.
Suddenly from the blankness I heard a sound as of human speech. At first
I thought it mere craziness--the cry of a weasel or a hill-bird
distorted by my ears. But again it came, thick and faint, as through
acres of mist, and yet clearly the sound of "articulate-speaking men."
In a moment I lost my despair and cried out in answer. This was some
forwandered traveller like myself, and between us we could surely find
some road to safety. So I yelled back at the pitch of my voice and
waited intently.
But the sound ceased, and there was utter silence again. Still I waited,
and then from some place much nearer came the same soft mumbling speech.
I could make nothing of it. Heard in that drear place it made the nerves
tense and the heart timorous. It was the strangest jumble of vowels and
consonants I had ever met.
A dozen solutions flashed through my brain. It was some maniac talking
Jabberwock to himself. It was some belated traveller whose wits had
given out in fear. Perhaps it was only some shepherd who was amusing
himself thus, and whiling the way with nonsense. Once again I cried out
and waited.
Then suddenly in the hollow trough of mist before me, where things could
still be half discerned, there appeared a figure. It was little and
squat and dark; naked, apparently, but so rough with hair that it wore
the appearance of a skin-covered being. It crossed my line of vision,
not staying for a moment, but in its face and eyes there seemed to lurk
an elder world of mystery and barbarism, a troll-like life which was too
horrible for words.
The shepherd's fear came back on me like a thunderclap. For one awful
instant my legs failed me, and I had almost fallen. The next I had
turned and ran shrieking up the hill.
If he who may read this narrative has never felt the force of an
overmastering terror, then let him thank his Maker and pray that he
never may. I am no weak child, but a strong grown man, accredited in
general with sound sense and little suspected of hysterics. And yet I
went up that brae-face with my heart fluttering like a bird and my
throat aching with fear. I screamed in short dry gasps; involuntarily,
for my mind was beyond any purpose. I felt that beast-like clutch at my
throat; those red eyes seemed to be staring at me from the mist; I heard
ever behind and before and on all sides the patter of those inhuman
feet.
Before I knew I was down, slipping over a rock and falling some dozen
feet into a soft marshy hollow. I was conscious of lying still for a
second and whimpering like a child. But as I lay there I awoke to the
silence of the place. There was no sound of pursuit; perhaps they had
lost my track and given up. My courage began to return, and from this it
was an easy step to hope. Perhaps after all it had been merely an
illusion, for folk do not see clearly in the mist, and I was already
done with weariness.
But even as I lay in the green moss and began to hope, the faces of my
pursuers grew up through the mist. I stumbled madly to my feet; but I
was hemmed in, the rock behind and my enemies before. With a cry I
rushed forward, and struck wildly with my rod at the first dark body.
It was as if I had struck an animal, and the next second the thing was
wrenched from my grasp. But still they came no nearer. I stood trembling
there in the centre of those malignant devils, my brain a mere
weathercock and my heart crushed shapeless with horror. At last the end
came, for with the vigour of madness I flung myself on the nearest, and
we rolled on the ground. Then the monstrous things seemed to close over
me, and with a choking cry I passed into unconsciousness.