Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/292

274 At the top of the mountain she sunk, and would not be persuaded to be removed, nor suffer the child to be taken from her. She fell asleep, and the people who were sent the next morning from the fort to seek for her, found her sitting against a stone, nearly covered with snow. The woman was quite dead; but the infant at her breast, being entirely covered with snow, was not absolutely lifeless. It was carried to the fort, where the governor's lady (from whom I had the sad tale) restored it to life; but it did not recover the perfect use of its limbs for many weeks, so much were they frozen. Soldiers too, in their march, have often perished there, by imprudently drinking quantities of spirits at the inn on the Moor, thinking thereby to keep out the cold; but alas! it was the sure way to destruction.

All these accounts did not deter me from going over the pass: I wished to see it, and I had come back from Fort William on purpose. Mr. Baillie of Dochfour, had once in his life crossed Corryarraick; and there met with a difficulty from his horses not standing to their collars when going up the zig-zag; and notwithstanding every effort, they could not, for a great length of time, be made to stir an inch; but I was going down