The Pleasures of June 77 



mass of green, but over broken ground whose contours 

 are full in view and within eyeshot of mountain 

 streams that will presently be lost, then well ! then 



The stag at eve had drunk his fill 

 Where danced the moon on Monan's rill 



and all the rest of it. That is your frame of mind as 

 long as it keeps fair, while in rainy weather you seem 

 to have been flung back into winter. Whether it be 

 that a Highland wind over lake and hills blows 

 keener than another, or that the Highland hotels are 

 built specially for draughts, certain it is that in the 

 June Highlands you may be extraordinarily uncom- 

 fortable. And neither umbrella, mackintosh, nor any 

 wrappage is proof against a Highland rain. To come 

 in cold and wet is to realise that the tavern in not all 

 your fancy painted. Either the servants are not yet 

 in for the season, or they have failed to learn their 

 duties ; for dinner is dogged by indigestion, and not 

 even the promise of a vail will rouse the waiters' intel- 

 ligence. And cold and rheumatism and influenza are 

 fellow -guests, and sit beside you at the feast. 



Yet if these be braved with impunity, the High- 

 lands in rain offer brave compensation for a wetting. 

 That jovial summer Cockney who talks of Stronash- 

 lasher, and offers with a pint of beer and a lemonade- 

 bottle to produce you a better cascade than is at 

 Inversnaid, might with profit study the water now. 

 Had he stood by Loch Katrine on a rainy day and 

 heard the thunder, deafening as Niagara's, of the falls 



