168 STUDIES OF NATUEE 



curious thing has been the way in which, as a 

 result of mingling rain and wind and cloud and 

 sun, they have appeared and disappeared a 

 fragment here, a fragment there producing 

 such an effect of wild beauty as it is quite 

 impossible to describe. I know of no other 

 appearance which, precisely in the same way, 

 seems to lift the earth out of its prosaic round, 

 making it, at once, the companion and the 

 subject of ethereal powers. 



In the evening I go a-fishing with one of 

 my boys in the Corrie burn. We put forth all 

 our poor skill, making most persevering casts 

 in the shallows and in the deeps, under the big 

 stones and where the boughs of oak and birch 

 make a dark shade, but the trout will not rise. 

 Probably it is too late for them, and I walk 

 on alone up the bank of the stream, and then 

 turn into the hamlet of High Corrie. This 

 place stands on a little plateau a few hundred 

 feet up the mountain. It is older than the 



