I knew I was in trouble but when you’re in the midst of trouble, you haven’t got time to think about the trouble you’re in. So I kept going forward and this seemed to be working okay until, from somewhere beyond me, somewhere in the fog, I heard a harmonic, mournful lowing. I stopped. The sound continued, and it was getting closer. I don’t go in for ghosts, Bear, but when you’re socked in weather that seems to have no end, in a country as old and full of stories as Scotland, and when you’re growing deliriously cold, you become a little more open to the romance of ghosts, of the ones who passed before and perhaps left a little of themselves behind. I’m not saying I was expecting some kind of spectre to appear, only that I considered the possibility of it. Even the appeal of it. Anyhow. The moaning sound continued to grow closer, but I kept moving forward because I certainly couldn’t go back. After a few minutes, a figure did take shape. At first, I was perplexed. It was a hulking thing, low to the ground. As I got closer I could see more detail, a bulk covered in copious amounts of long, straggled hair, heavy with moisture. I thought: dog? Boar? But it moaned again and suddenly the mist between us dissolved, and there, in all apathy, a massive Highland cow. A bull, no less, sitting sideways on the trail and solid as a wall. He swung his great head slowly towards me and shifted a little, but clearly had no intention of moving. His eyes were concealed by his matted, dirty white coat and he smelled of bog water and peat and hot, bovine muscle. The particular way the trail was cut into the side of the mountain meant that I couldn’t divert above or below him. What with my heavy bag, and considering I couldn’t see more than a metre ahead, the bull was blocking my only way forward. I waved my arms and yelled. He swatted his small tail at me as if I were a flea. I sang the national anthem of Norway, danced, unbuckled my trousers and urinated, thinking this might offend him into shifting. Nothing.

Meeting the bull had at first distracted me from how cold I was, but I soon remembered, as if the cold were a jealous companion and had tapped me on the shoulder and said: You’re not leaving me behind. I needed to move forward and find a place to pitch my tent and light a fire. I searched the ground and found a few good-sized stones. With my heart in my throat and not sure how this would end, I threw the stones at the bull’s rump. All this inspired from him was a grumble and an angry twitch. So, I found more stones and this time, lobbed them at his head. This got him up. He took a few steps towards me so I bent again for more stones, nearly losing my balance with the weight of my heavy bag strapped to my back. I scrabbled at the ground again and came up with a handful of grit, and threw this at the bull. Steam billowed from his wet, black nostrils. I screamed something low that hurt my throat and this inhuman sound echoed strangely in the mist, surprising both of us. With impressive agility, the bull danced a tight circle on the narrow trail and began to move slowly away, dumping as he went a glorious procession of green and steaming pats of shit. I gave him a few minutes’ head start before I continued down the trail, cold and tired and humiliated.