eight o’clock
Loch Leven-head may be bonny by day , but at night it is far from friendly to the unaccustomed wanderer . Swampy meadows frozen to the hard bone , and uncountable burns , and weary ascents , and alarming dips , lie there at the foot of the great forest of Mamore . And to us , poor fugitives , even these were less cruel than the thickets at the very head where the river brawled into the loch with a sullen surrender of its mountain independence . About seven or eight o'clock we got safely over a ford and into the hilly country that lies tumbled to the north of Glencoe . Before us lay the choice of two routes , either of them leading in the direction of Glenurchy , but both of them hemmed in by the most inevitable risks , especially as but one of all our party was familiar -LRB- and that one but middling well -RRB- with the countryside . `` The choice of a cross-road at night in a foreign land is Tall John 's pick of the farmer 's daughters , '' as our homely proverb has it ; you never know what you have till the morn 's morning . And our picking was bad indeed , for instead of taking what we learned again was a drove-road through to Tynree , we stood more to the right and plunged into what after all turned out to be nothing better than a corrie among the hills .