152 THE AMATEUR TRAMP IN SCOTLAND 



fringe of weeping birches. Here and there the oppres- 

 sion of the solitude is relieved by a shooting-box or a 

 shepherd's cottage, and in either case the sporting dogs 

 or the collies are sure to awaken the echoes with a 

 shrill chorus of clamorous baying ; or mayhap you may 

 come on a lonely kirk, with the single-storied manse 

 within a stone's throw ; and a tiny school and a humble 

 schoolmaster's house, and a hovel that may be tenanted 

 by the minister's man. How on earth the most fervent 

 piety, or the most impassioned eloquence, can evoke 

 even the phantom of a decent congregation, is a 

 mystery you cannot profess to fathom. The prolific 

 Celts that once peopled the valley have long since been 

 swept away to give place to the sheep and the deer. 

 You saw the grass-grown foundation of one of their 

 deserted hamlets scarring the turf of the little knoll 

 that was lapped on three sides in a loop of the stream. 

 But the present population of these parts has no notion 

 of distance ; and in many a winding hill-valley that 

 runs up among the roots of the hills are the huts of 

 shepherds and keepers and gillies, whose existence one 

 never suspects till it is betrayed by the peat-reek from 

 the chimneys. 



By this time, however, you must have had nearly 

 enough of it, though you did have an opportunity of 

 breaking your fast at midday on oat-cakes and ewe- 

 milk cheese, bottled ale and a caulker of whisky, 

 following up the meal with a pipe and a siesta, basking 

 on the balmy bank of the river. So that as you pass 

 the last of the milestones with a perceptible limp, you 



