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When the raven had taken breath, and saw that the snake was dead, he said, "For thy kindness to me this day, I will give thee a sight. Come up now on the root of my two wings." The king's son put his hands about the raven before his wings, and, before he stopped, he took him over nine Bens, and nine Glens, and nine Mountain Moors. "Now," said the raven, "see you that house yonder? Go now to it.
We were lost in a wilderness of mountain-peaks; the bens started about us on every hand like the horrors of a nightmare, every ben with its death-sheet, menacing us, poor insects, crawling in our pain across the landscape.
So come up now on the root of my two wings. The king's son did as he was bid, and before the raven stopped flying, they had passed over seven bens and seven glens and seven mountain moors. 'Do you see that house yonder? said the raven at last. 'Go straight for it, for a sister of mine dwells there, and she will make you right welcome.
It was a day for the open road, and, as we say, for putting the seven glens and the seven bens and the seven mountain moors below a young man's feet, a day with invitation in the air and the promise of gifts around The mallards at morning had quacked in the Dhuloch pools, the otter scoured the burn of Maam, the air-goat bleated as he flew among the reeds, and the stag paused above his shed antlers on Torvil-side to hide them in the dead bracken.
The little group gathered about him in silence, upon a little headland that overlooked the valley, and feasted upon the beauty that spread itself out before them, the undulating slope and shimmering loch, the wide moors and softly rounded hills, the dark green masses of ragged firs, and the great white Bens in the far distance, and below them, in the midst the human touch, in a nestling village with its Heaven-pointing spire.
"Don' want no wages," said Quashy. "Besides," resumed Lawrence, "even if I were willing to take you, Senhor Pedro might object." "I no care for Senhor Pedro one brass buttin," retorted the negro. The Peruvian smiled rather approvingly at this candid expression of opinion. "Where you gwine?" asked Quashy, abruptly. "To Buenos Ayres." "I's gwine to Bens Airies too.
This is a portion of the country that, Heaven be praised! still retains some of the good old-fashioned directness and simplicity. Bucks is full of Jacks, and Bens, and Dicks, and we question if there is such a creature, of native growth, in all that region, as an Ithusy, or a Seneky, or a Dianthy, or an Antonizetty, or a Deidamy.
I have introduced, from the Campbell version, the phrase "seven Bens, and seven Glens, and seven Mountain Moors," which so attracted Stevenson's Catriona, in order to point out as a remarkable coincidence that Hasan of Bassora, in the Arabian Nights, flies over "seven Waddys, seven Seas, and seven Mountains."
A myriad bens around gave mists, as smoke from a censer, to the day. The Athole pipers high-breastedly strutted with a vain port up and down their lines and played incessantly. MacDonald and O'Kyan led the Irish on the wings. In the plain we could see Argile's forces in a somewhat similar order, with the tartan as it should be in the midst of the bataille and the Lowland levies on the flanks.
He got good treatment this night, as before plenty of meat and drink, and warm water to his feet, and a soft bed to his limbs and on the next day it was the same thing, over three Bens and three Glens, and three Mountain Moors.