MESSAGES OF THE WIND 143 



For the most part it was still, with a stillness 

 which is only to be found among great mountains, 

 but at times a boisterous wind came shouting 

 round the tops like a roUicking boy out for an 

 imexpected holiday. On the grass slopes one 

 could see his approach from afar as the yellow 

 plumes swayed and bent. Then came a nmrmur 

 and a little fitful breeze. Louder and louder it 

 swelled, until, with a rush and a roar, he was 

 over us and away, rioting down the glen, while 

 tall trees sang at his coming. Then, in the warm 

 sunshine, everything would grow still and silent 

 again ; bees hunniied and murmured as they do 

 on a Highland moor ; butterflies, strangely out of 

 place amid the little sheltered patches of snow, 

 fluttered and danced in a pathetic make-believe 

 that spring was near, and the iron grip of winter 

 far away. Occasionally, out of the nowhere, like 

 the white soul of a dead child, floated a little 

 speck of thistledown, pure against the blue im- 

 mensity of the heavens. It hovered for a space 

 and was gone again into the vast beyond ; and 

 all the while silent, sentinel peaks, their ledges 

 and sheer precipices slashed and streaked with 

 snow, looked gravely on from afar at me, the 

 butterflies, the wind, and the thistledown, as the 

 gods looked down from Olympus at the doings 

 of the men of old. 



It was pleasant to lie there three thousand feet 

 above our temporary home ; to watch the grey 

 rocks and the withered grand old pines — was it 

 not Stevenson who said : " Thank God for the 

 stems of the pines ! " ? — stately wrecks amid the 

 glory of an autumn wood. It was pleasant to 

 11 



