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the next morning the Spirit of Evil tempted me
and I fell. You must know that opposite to
King's House there is a great hill called Buchaille
Etive Mhor (the great shepherd of Etive) which guards the
entrance to Glen Etive on the one hand and Glencoe
on the other. Parr had once tried to climb this and
failed: it is marked in all the guide-books as
inaccessible: even the Scottish Mountaineering Club
succeeded with difficulty in getting up last summer though
they had ropes & axes. Now as we were walking down
the glen I cast my eyes up to the giant. I saw Edgar
do the same. Then our eyes began to water and
simultaneously we turned to the other & said 'Come on' &
went. It was sheer madness, for we had no
mountaineering tools & we were encumbered with
waterproofs. In two hours we had wrestled up to
the top of the heather slope where the rocks & snow began.
It was very laborious work for the day was strangely enough
growing very hot. Thus far we had kept together; now I, being