The Land of the Hills and the Glens 



glass. But to-day no geese peopled the lochan ; they had 

 been driven forth by the frost which held the waters fast in its 

 grip. Indeed, on the ice one could see their tracks, and they 

 had perhaps kept open a narrow channel as long as possible 

 by continually swimming backwards and forwards. 



But with the coming of a south wind a few days later 

 the frost left the plateau, and though on the lochan the ice 

 was by now many inches thick, it was soon melted sufficiently 

 for the geese to return and feed as of old on the succulent 

 weeds. 



During the early spring they were still there; but one 

 morning of April, when the breath of spring pervaded the 

 lochan and when the waters of the Minch sparkled blue in 

 the sunlight, the company of white-fronted geese rose with 

 strong cries from the loch, and, rising high into the still 

 air, set their course for the north. Gathering themselves 

 into V-shaped formation, they moved rapidly forward on 

 powerful wings. Past Rudha Stoer, past Cape Wrath, their 

 way led them, and then, crossing far above the Orkneys, 

 they were perhaps over Iceland before the sunset. Here, I 

 think, they halted awhile, for the Arctic was still in the grip 

 of the ice, but immediately their instinct told them that the 

 ice and snow had broken up they pressed forward, for they 

 were making for their nesting-grounds in the high North, 

 where, in Spitzbergen, maybe, or in the Russian tundras, 

 they would rear their young in a land of continual daylight, 

 and would think no more of the Ross-shire lochan till the 

 early storms of autumn warned them that the season of the 

 southward journey was at hand. 



152 



