Una returned in a few minutes, and repeated to her mistress a few lines in Gaelic.  Flora seemed to think for a moment, and then, slightly colouring, she turned to Waverley—­’It is impossible to gratify your curiosity, Captain Waverley, without exposing my own presumption.  If you will give me a few moments for consideration, I will endeavour to engraft the meaning of these lines upon a rude English translation, which I have attempted, of a part of the original.  The duties of the tea-table seem to be concluded, and, as the evening is delightful, Una will show you the way to one of my favourite haunts, and Cathleen and I will join you there.’

Una, having received instructions in her native language, conducted Waverley out by a passage different from that through which he had entered the apartment.  At a distance he heard the hall of the chief still resounding with the clang of bagpipes and the high applause of his guests.  Having gained the open air by a postern door, they walked a little way up the wild, bleak, and narrow valley in which the house was situated, following the course of the stream that winded through it.  In a spot, about a quarter of a mile from the castle, two brooks, which formed the little river, had their junction.  The larger of the two came down the long bare valley, which extended, apparently without any change or elevation of character, as far as the hills which formed its boundary permitted the eye to reach.  But the other stream, which had its source among the mountains on the left hand of the strath, seemed to issue from a very narrow and dark opening betwixt two large rocks.  These streams were different also in character.  The larger was placid, and even sullen in its course, wheeling in deep eddies, or sleeping in dark blue pools; but the motions of the lesser brook were rapid and furious, issuing from between precipices, like a maniac from his confinement, all foam and uproar.

It was up the course of this last stream that Waverley, like a knight of romance, was conducted by the fair Highland damsel, his silent guide.  A small path, which had been rendered easy in many places for Flora’s accommodation, led him through scenery of a very different description from that which he had just quitted.  Around the castle, all was cold, bare, and desolate, yet tame even in desolation; but this narrow glen, at so short a distance, seemed to open into the land of romance.  The rocks assumed a thousand peculiar and varied forms.  In one place, a crag of huge size presented its gigantic bulk, as if to forbid the passenger’s farther progress; and it was not until he approached its very base, that Waverley discerned the sudden and acute turn by which the pathway wheeled its course around this formidable obstacle.  In another spot, the projecting rocks from the opposite sides of the chasm had approached so near to each other, that two pine-trees laid across, and covered with turf, formed a rustic bridge at the height of at least one hundred and fifty feet.  It had no ledges, and was barely three feet in breadth.