226 "THE MOOR AND THE LOCH" 



such lonely moorland waters as Erricht or Rannoch, 

 or in the sublimity of the land-locked sea-lochs that 

 indent the genial Western Coast, or breach the bleak 

 and barren precipices of the misty Western Islands. In 

 tranquillity or storm, everywhere we hear the rushing 

 of many waters after rain, or the roar of brawling 

 cataracts. Fed by the myriads of burns and mountain 

 rills, these inland lochs are the natural reservoirs 

 filtering brown floods to the crystal streams which 

 swell into the famous rivers, which, as Scott said, 

 the Caledonian regards with feelings approaching to 

 reverence. And all are swarming with fish, strong, 

 subtle, and vigorous, from the clean-run salmon 

 sheathed in his sea-lice to the salmo ferox of Loch 

 Awe and the lively trout of Loch Leven. So as 

 the old associations revive, the poetry of imagination 

 is translated into action, and many an epic or idyll 

 of the rod falls into the picturesque and appropriate 

 setting. We remember how playing the heavy grilse 

 in a slippery gorge had nearly landed the angler in 

 a watery grave, and we feel again those pangs of 

 bitterest anguish when the phenomenal monster, lured 

 for once from unknown depths, broke away as the 

 boatman fancying him already in the scales, bent 

 over to clique him in the shoulder. And we hear 

 other sounds besides the fall of the cataract or the 

 scream of the eagle. The report of the gun breaks 

 the stillness of the moors, and the crack of the rifle 

 reverberates in the forests, till the last faint echo dies 

 away in the distance. We hear the pack of keen 



