rest laid their arms over one another's shoulders, lest in their passage over the rough and slippery rocks any of them should lose his footing, and be carried away by the torrent. The man who had got over, though the water was not many yards broad, supported himself against its force and weight with a stick; but he did not attempt with this weapon to defend the pasof the stream from the bank he had gained. sage What vexed the gaugers and the rest. was, that they had not gone a hundred yards among the precipices of rock on this side the glen, when the man again plunged into the torrent, and was over it in an instant; and just at this crisis, the saying of "the grey mare's tail begins to grow," was fully and awfully verified, for one of the heaviest showers of rain that could possibly fall in ten minutes, swelled the burn some miles higher up its stream; and just as all the party were preparing to grapple with each other and force themselves through the water, the torrent was heard coming down the glen with the noise of thunder, for the loftiness of the rocks on either side added to its roar; and about two hundred yards higher up, where was a cataract, the water bounded with the greatest violence over the rock, and dashed down the glen with a rapidity swifter than even imagination can conceive, raising as it rolled itself along, a cloud of spray that looked like a thick body of smoke. There was no time to reason; every man scrambled up the rocks as fast as his agility could enable him; and the hindmost had but just cleared the surface of the torrent, when the whole were enveloped in its drenching spray; but as the rain had entirely ceased, even before the roaring of the water was heard, the torrent of this burn almost subsided to its usual depth in the same space of time that a good drenching shower would have swelled a burn on ground less mountainous. eye And going again into the "fording array," the foremost man keeping his steadily fixed on a stone on the opposite bank, they once more, up to the middle in the water, forced the passage of this independent stream; but their man was gone, and to find his retreat was now their utmost wish. The firmament, at this moment, was one sheet of ethereal blue: the firs on the summits and faces of the rocks; the thick copse woods at their bases; the vapour from the burn; the waters dashing over huge pieces of broken rocks, which had fallen from the primary masses; if the company that enjoyed these grand and picturesque views had not been drenched with wa ter, would even, in spite of the dark, black grey rocks, have raised in the passengers' mind a series of contemplations on the beauties of a Highland glen; the retreat of daring fellows, who, without feeling one pleasurable idea from the enchanting scenery and magnificent cascade, stalked to their cold and dreary cavern, equally regardless of the intermixture of the romantic and the sublime, as of the barren and frightful rocks which reared their enormous tops to menace the clouds and the boisterous storm; and the awful and terrific chasms of the yawning sides of these rocks seemed to smile, and bid defiance to all the artillery of heaven that might be levelled against their impregnable masses; and such was the commanding view that now lay around the pursuers of Whiggans, in whom we have traced one disinterested action. GHAPTER V. Stranger! if e'er thine ardent step hath traced Gazing on pathless glen and mountain high, WHEN St. Clyde and the excisemen, and the cutter's people, had advanced in this way for about three hundred yards, after crossing the burn a second time, the same man they had been pursuing was observed on a piece of table rock that seemed to be about thirty feet above the scarcely passable foot-path; but as this shelf was acces |