WINTER IN THE NORTH 309 



a short-set boy who, in an ordinary way, acts aide-de- 

 camp to any poacher, or shepherd, or gillie. A grander 

 beat than ours, in point of picturesqueness, it would be 

 difficult to find ; and it is as dear to the cocks as to 

 lovers of nature. The ground falls in a succession of 

 long tumbling slopes from the ridge of heather-covered 

 hills to the shores of the loch. From each eminence 

 the eye naturally travels down the estuary as it winds 

 away among the mountains, round promontory, creek, 

 and bay. Most beautiful of all, perhaps, is the imme- 

 diate foreground. What tempts the woodcock are the 

 multiplicity of springs, and the variety of streams that 

 come down an endless succession of parallel ravines, 

 with rocky banks that are overgrown with wood in 

 many spots. Here the water is leaping down stair- 

 cases of stone, under mossy cornices fringed with 

 icicles. Elsewhere you can barely hear it murmur as 

 it is lost to sight under the drooping firs and the 

 birchen boughs. And everywhere in those tiny valleys 

 are gushing land-springs, which convert the turf around 

 them into a tiny morass, where the mud will be 

 softened for the "long-bills" in the mid-day sun- 

 shine. Between these Scottish nullahs are patches of 

 Highland jungle the dwarf oak, and the birch, and 

 the spruce and silver-fir, interspersed with old and 

 gnarled hollies, and interwoven with matted brambles ; 

 while the open glades in the heather are dotted over 

 with outstanding trees like the Alpine wetter tannen, and 

 with beds of withered bracken, in all the winter hues of 

 their reds and yellows. 



