380 A Walk from 



likely strangers thrown together on the railroad. They 

 doubtless came from different directions, but, from 

 Highlands or Lowlands, they came out of Bible- 

 lighted homes, whose " voices of the night " were 

 blended with the breathings of religious life and 

 instruction. Separated from such homes, they had 

 agreed to make this one after the same spiritual 

 pattern, barring the parental presence and teaching. 



The next day after breakfast, took leave of my 

 kind, cottage hosts, exchanging good wishes for mutual 

 happiness. Went out of the amphitheatre of Strath- 

 spey by a gateway into another surrounded by 

 mountains less lofty and entirely covered with heather. 

 For several miles beyond Carr Bridge I passed over 

 the wildest moorland. The road was marked by posts 

 about ten feet high, painted white within two feet of the 

 top and black above. These are planted about fifteen 

 rods apart, to guide the traveller in the drifting and 

 blinding snows of winter. The road over this cold, 

 desolate waste exceeded anything I ever saw in 

 America, even in the most fashionable suburbs of New 

 York and Boston. It was as smooth and hard as a 

 cement floor. Here on this treeless wild I met several 

 men at work trimming the edges of the road by a line, 

 with as much precision and care as if they were laying 

 out an aisle in a flower-garden. After a walk of about 



