208 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 



