I A Gossip on a Sutherland Hill-side 235 



tussock grass, where the blue hare bounces up and 

 squatters through the plashes like some strange 

 water-work, and where little brown moorland birds 

 spring up every {^"^ yards, whistle a few cheery 

 notes, and then settle down into their damp beds 

 again. Then unto the burn again, now grown 

 smaller, running black and quiet in its channel, 

 deeply cut in the gravel with an edging of bright 

 green turf, and rushes here and there, and walls of 

 black peat eight or ten feet high, a little wider to 

 the right and left — telling a story of old, old times, 

 and the hard work the little burn has had to make 

 its way in the world. Quite a little sheltered valley, 

 warm and cosy in this stormy day, perfect in itself, 

 with little streams, little meadows, and little black 

 alps protecting it. It would be a perfect miniature, 

 even to its close little sky of mist, were the effect 

 not injured by the roots and stumps of ancient birch- 

 trees sticking out from the bog like bones from a 

 sea-washed churchyard. 



' How is it, Donald, that the stumps of these 

 birches show such evident marks of having been 

 burnt down ? ' 



' 'Deed, sir, I cannot say. They do say that the 

 great witch of Clebric burnt the woods down about 

 some quarrel with a hunter who did not give her 

 venaison ; and others do say that the Danes burnt 

 them down to drive out the Pechts, in the old time ; 

 but 'deed I do not know.' 



You may take which explanation you like, or 



