248 Notes on Sport and Travel 



silence in the open-air world yet The two most 

 silent situations I know are an Alp above the snow- 

 line, and a gorse common baking in the summer 

 sun ; but even there we have the grinding of ice 

 and the swish of fallen snow in the one case, and 

 the crackling of the gorse-buds in the other, to tell 

 us that Nature never sleeps. I wonder, by the bye, 

 whether Jeemie is asleep ? he ought to be up by 

 this time ; and putting the stag on the pony would 

 warm us. 



' 'Deed, sir, no ; it's hard work bringing up the 

 old powney this weather, and all the burns in spate ; 

 and he knows that we shall not move till it clears, 

 for fear of doing mischief ; and now it wants a 

 quarter of eleven. Hoot ! how it rains ; it's very 

 hard I can never gae oot for a day's pleasure with- 

 oot getting my claes spoiled, as the old wifie said 

 when it rained at her husband's burying. Weel, 

 weel, we must bide where we are till the mist rises, 

 and then, if there are no fit staigs about the head of 

 Brora, we must go over toward Clebric' 



' By the bye, Donald, Mr. Scrope, who was a 

 great hand at deer-driving in Blair Athole Forest in 

 old times, tells a story about a savage individual of 

 the name of Chisholm, who lived for years in a cave 

 on Ben Clebric ; do you know anything about him ?' 



' Ay, 'deed, sir, I mind the name well enough ; 

 but he was not a wild man at all, but a decent body 

 from Rogart, and he only stopped in the cave for a 

 day or two, and glad enough he was to get oot o't' 



