220 WILD FLOWERS OF SCOTLAND 



the romantic seemed now to be indulged to the 

 full; and what strange thoughts came into our 

 heads as we peeped out through the ferns which 

 grew so thickly around us ! 



" One by one we dropped to sleep ; but scarce had 

 we shut our eyes, when our hands, which we had 

 left outside the covering as barometers, told us of 

 a change of weather. We should soon have been 

 drenched had we not taken up our beds and 

 adjourned to a hut, which, to all appearance, served 

 as a maternity hospital for all the sheep in the 

 neighbourhood. 



" It was now twelve o'clock, with the rain pour- 

 ing in torrents, and the wind whistling in fitful 

 gusts through our fragile domicile, and one of 

 our sorrowing friends was heard to whisper 



Sic a night 

 As ne'er puir sinner was abroad in." 



Sic another night was this, and such mayhap 

 would have been my fate had the storm delayed 

 its coming. In my weakness, the prospect of a 

 tighter roof brings a sense of relief. I had been 

 here before. 



A shepherd's cottage has been converted into a 

 sort of hostelry, for the behoof of passers through 

 the defile. In old days it might have been called 



