CHAPTER XXII THE FINDHORN 



the river, which is surrounded by dreary grey hills. As I 

 got on, however, the banks grew more rocky and pictur- 

 esque, enlivened here and there by the usual green patches 

 of corn, and the small farm-houses, with their large peat- 

 stack, but diminutive corn-stack. Near Freeburn I talked 

 to an old Highlander, who was flogging the water with a 

 primitive-looking rod and line and a coarse-looking fly, 

 catching, however, a goodly number of trout. He was the 

 first angler I had as yet passed, with the exception of a 

 kilted boy, belonging to the shepherd at our place of rest, 

 who was already out when we left home, catching trout for 

 his own breakfast and that of a young peregrine falcon 

 which he had caught in the rocks opposite the house, and 

 was keeping wholly on a fish diet — and a more beautiful 

 and finer bird I never saw, although she had fed for many 

 weeks on nothing but small trout, a food not so congenial 

 to her as rabbits and pigeons and the other products of the 

 low country. I bought the hawk of him, and have kept her 

 ever since. Below Freeburn I had to wade the river, in 

 order to avoid a very difficult and somewhat dangerous 

 pass on the rocks. Frequently I met with fresh tracks of 

 the otter. In some places, where the water fell over rocks 

 of any height, so as to prevent the animal from keeping 

 the bed of the river, there were regularly hard beaten paths 

 by which they passed in going from one pool to the other. 

 The water-ouzel, too, enlivened the scene by its curious 

 rapid flight and shrill cry, as it flew from one shallow to 

 another, or passed back over my head to return to its fav- 

 ourite resting-stone from which I had disturbed it. 



The kestrel seems to abound in the rocks through which 

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