74 Summer 



aptest to make the experiment here analysed, and in 

 the heart of the season he reminds you of nothing so 

 much as a nervous elderly gentleman seeking rest by 

 a ' byke ' of wasps. Does he compose himself to 

 recline on the turf? There in horrible proximity the 

 little beasts are passing out and in, and he flees the 

 accursed nook in terror. Does he sit him down on a 

 limb of the fallen willow ? Lo ! their buzzing is in 

 his ear before he has had time to mop his brow with 

 his bandanna. Peace there is none for him unless he 

 shake off the dust from his feet and depart the place. 

 Even so the contemplative tourist in summer. He 

 sits him vacant by the Teith, well pleased to feed his 

 vacancy upon the song of the water ; but he starts in 

 fury and dismay to learn from the ' Saxon, I am 

 Roderick Dhu ! ' of some knickerbockered monster 

 that here is Coil-an-Togle Ford. Or among the green- 

 embowered ruins of Menteith he will hold himself 

 thrice happily unfriended and remote, when lo ! there 

 overtakes him like a flood the odious and inevitable 

 trip in all its obscene garniture of lemonade-bottles, 

 sandwiches, concertinas, flutes, sweethearts, slang, 

 canorous reminiscences of the 'alls. The leafage rings 

 with * Two Lovely Black Eyes,' or ' Ta-ra-ra-,' and 

 the lonely burnsides blush with blazers and dreadful 

 things, chimeras dire in the way of women's hats. 

 And if, in search of solitude by Loch Ard, or on the 

 slopes of Ben Ledi, or where the blue waters of Loch 

 Katrine plash gently on the Silver Strand, he curse 



