Right down below him, and visible through the birch-trees,
was the river itself, of a brilliant, clear-shining blue, save where in
some more distant sweeps it shone a silver-white; on the other side of
the broad strath rose a range of hill fringed along its base with wood,
but terminating in the west in far altitudes of bare rock and heather;
while now and again he could catch a glimpse of some still more distant
peak or shoulder, no doubt belonging to the remote and mountainous
region of Assynt. And there, in the middle of the plain, stood the
shooting-lodge for which he was bound--a long, rambling building or
series of buildings, with all sorts of kennels and out-houses and
deer-houses attached; and as he was regarding this goal and aim of his
journey, and wondering how he was going to get across the swift-flowing
stream, behold! a white fluttering of handkerchiefs just outside the
porch. It was a signal to him, he knew; and he returned it more than
once--until, indeed, he discovered that his driver was leaving the road
and about to take the horses down a rudely cut track on the hillside.
"I say, isn't there a bridge anywhere?" he asked; for he was not used to
such exploits.
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