Few soles trample this upper glen and the dwindling track as it skirts the Wharry Burn’s gorge. Those that do are rewarded with a ravine of surprising drama. At the head of the chasm, where fallen trees and gravel bars accumulate, the burn is placid. But here, at the lip of the first cascade, the water squeezes between two sandstone boulders, accelerating into a racing white flume, hissing with second thoughts. I leap the gap between the boulders, to where the only trails belong to the deer; to where the only prints are cloven. They trace secretive routes, brushing through bracken fronds and around the silent trunks of the broadleaved woodland – beech, elm, ash and birch. One veteran beech spreads its aged and weighty branches like an upturned hand, wearing a ragged glove of deep green moss. Straight-trunked younger trees keep a respectful distance. Occasional leaves tumble down to join the multitude that carpet the ground. The gold, copper and bronze delights my colour-hungry eyes. It is a privilege to find peace in nature this autumn. By now the river is deep below and known only to the ear as it boils and rushes. A glimpse of it can be stolen from behind fearless trees at the craggy edge; the roots of the bravest grip tightly at the brink. The white falls, racing flumes, and black pools churn away in the secret depths. The chasm protects the riverbed from wandering hooves and boots, and the burn flows on undisturbed. A buzzard drops from the canopy above, wings wide and in a leaf-like spin. It spots me late in its descent and suddenly banks away into the safety of the woods. I came here on Armistice Day many years ago carrying a red poppy on my chest, to remember those who could never come home. I felt, as I do today, that if there were a wild place that a fading soul might yearn to visit just one last time, it might be a place of splendour such as this; to listen to the river, to lie on a moss softened bough, to hear the birds pipe out lullabies, and to watch the lowering of the November sun.