I 



A GOSSIP ON A SUTHERLAND 

 HILL-SIDE 



[Reprinted from Vacation Tourists and Notes of Travel, edited by 

 Francis Galton (1861)] 



Half-past five ! The rain pattering against the 

 window-panes, and the birches outside swishing and 

 rasping against the walls, with a vehemence that 

 tells of a rattling south-wester ; dark gray mist 

 driving past, only permitting us to see some fifty 

 yards of the lake, lead -coloured, flecked with foam, 

 and long white waving streaks like a tideway. To 

 dress or not to dress ? To turn out and drive seven 

 miles in the teeth of the storm, and find our horizon 

 capable of being touched with the point of a ramrod 

 when we reach the stalking-ground, or to turn in 

 under the warm bedclothes again, to wake at nine 

 o'clock, with a guilty conscience, to the reality of a 

 glorious morning, so clear and bright after the rain 

 that I can almost count the stones on the top of 

 Ben Clebric, — to be told that the household is aweary 

 of mutton and languishes for venison, — to find the 

 river in full spate and salmon impossibilities, — to 



P 



