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His sight had become extraordinarily keen for a new-comer on the ranges, and when experience had taught him the land-marks, the trails, the distances, the difference between smoke and dust and haze, when he could distinguish a band of mustangs from cattle, and range-riders from outlaws or Indians; in a word, when he had learned to know what it was that he saw, to trust his judgment, he would have acquired the basic feature of a rider's training.
On the 22d at sun-rise the land was clouded, but it was not long before the clouds went off, and we found, by our land-marks, that we had made a good advance.
The mountain-piles of white cloud moved in sublime procession along the blue field of heaven, overhead. The wild growth of prickly bushes, spread in great patches over the grass, was in a glory of yellow bloom. On we went; now up, now down; now bending to the right, and now turning to the left. I looked about me. No house; no road; no paths, fences, hedges, walls; no land-marks of any sort.
Old shepherds who had lived on the run for fifteen years, confessed that they did not know their way fifty yards from the homestead. The vallies were filled up, so that one gully looked precisely like its fellow; rocks, scrub, Ti-ti palms, all our local land-marks had disappeared; not a fence or gate could be seen in all the country side.
When they got once more on firm ground, Martin recognized certain land-marks, or cairns, on the tops of the neighbouring hills, by which he was enabled to guide his course, and ere long they arrived at the Tower of Glendearg. It was at the sight of this little fortalice that the misery of her lot pressed hard on the poor Lady of Avenel.
"Lanterns and false-beacons!" returned the other, mimicking the voice of the disconcerted burgher, and pointing to the lights that still stood where last described. "Can the port be entered without respecting the land-marks and signals?" "This comes of moonlight and sentiment!
It is a mistake to have land-marks to remind you how time is running on, how friends have left, how the loved ones have passed away. The vacant place appears even more empty. The old happy times show out even happier in contrast to the present. You cannot enjoy yourself or forget the past, for "A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."
He could not refrain, it is true, from remembering the day when he himself had been a lieutenant in the ship in which the rear-admiral had been a midshipman, but he no longer recollected the circumstance with the bitterness that it sometimes drew after it. On the contrary, it was now brought to his mind merely as the most distant of the many land-marks in their long and joint services.
The colossal bergs, which stretched like well-known land-marks over the sea, were their guides at first; but after travelling ten hours without halting, they had passed the greater number of those with which they were familiar, and entered upon an unknown region. Here it became necessary to use the utmost caution.
Had it been merely the rebellion of provinces against a sovereign, the importance of the struggle would have been more local and temporary. But the period was one in which the geographical land-marks of countries were almost removed. The dividing-line ran through every state, city, and almost every family.
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