2o8 The Grouse Family 



hadn't seen very far. And here was a fog, or a 

 snow-storm, or something equally cold-natured, 

 deliberately interfering. As the Wizard of West- 

 ern song has put it : — 



" We looked in silence down across the distant 

 Unfathomable reach : 

 A silence broken by the guide's consistent 

 And realistic speech." 



" By gum ! she's liftin' ! " exclaimed that worthy; 

 and — By gum ! she were ! 



Like a child at a Sunday-school show, I stared 

 bubble-eyed at the fog curtain, for it seemed to 

 shake in a suspicious manner — maybe it would 

 roll up presently — then what? Slowly, oh, so 

 slowly and majestically, as though Nature herself 

 had charge and knew better than to spring the 

 surprise too suddenly, that curtain rolled away ! 

 To say that the panorama was grand would sim- 

 ply be idiotic ; from grass-fields, however broad, 

 to the full majesty of mighty mountains rising in 

 stupendous disorder — peak upon peak, mountain 

 on mountain piled — is a leap beyond the powers 

 of that vaulting-pole of all vaulting-poles — the 

 pen. But there they stood, proud, serene, o'er- 

 mastering, robed in an awful dignity, as though 

 oblivious of their ghastly scars, where had fallen 

 the blows of ages of warring forces. 



Above them all the gleaming helmet of their 



