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THERE is an exhilaration
which comes over one in the hills -- something remote, divorced from any
other sensation in the whole range of human emotions; a hunger, an ache,
that the lowlands can never give. It is not a pleasant feeling -- indeed,
at times, there is a dreadful hopelessness about it, a lorn, lost sense of
loving where no love is given in return. For, however deeply we worship
them, the hills will never care. Aloof, ageless, frozen in their cold
white realm of clouds, they will stand there to the end of time,
unawakened by worldly things; while we -- poor, frail, presumptuous humans
that we are! -- live out our little lives like the flicker of a
candle-flame, shining for an hour, only to be snuffed out forever by the
winds of the eternal dark. The hills have seen so much, and it has all
come to the same end. Ashes and dust; a lament of pipes in the gloaming;
and, at last, a shadowed peace broken only by the lingering cry of the
whaup over whitening bones.
Thus, the melancholy tenor of our mood as we progressed silently along the
deserted road, each stroke of the pedal taking us farther away from the
friendly, reassuring atmosphere of the hotel into the mountain fastnesses
of the Glen of the Black Water. Yet, somehow, by the very sombreness of
our thoughts, our hearts were lightened, our spirits keyed to meet and
conquer whatever the day should hold.
(From " Over the Hills to Ballater," by kind permission of S.M.T. Magazine
and Scottish Country Life.)
Head of Glen Clova. The entrance to Glen Ouil
(Dole) |
