44(5 Notes on Sport mid Travel vi 



stone walls, and the new farm-house, twelve feet high 

 at the roof-poles, dwindling down through cowbyre 

 and turf-shed, till you cannot distinguish the grass- 

 and -ragweed -covered sod roof from the hill -side 

 against which it rests. And above, the belt of dark 

 pines, planted by the late laird ; and above them, sweep 

 after sweep of purple heather and rich yellow-brown 

 deer-grass, sprinkled with gray stones, tier above tier 

 and swell above swell, till it ends in broad-shouldered, 

 quartz-gleaming hill and corrie ; where the ptarmigan 

 run and cower amongst the stones, and the blue hare 

 makes her last attempt to mesmerise you with her 

 fore-paws as she sits on her doup against the sky- 

 line, looking more like a hill kangaroo than a thing 

 to make hare-soup of; and then, away, far away — 

 are they clouds or purple hills ? 



Away, up above, at the head of the lake, are her 

 parent springs. Brown, rushing cascady Papa, from 

 Strath More, stern and noisy and hardy, — without a 

 tree to shelter him — rough, and strong, and impetuous, 

 very valiant in spate, and not bad to fish when in 

 order ; and soft -tripping, tinkling Mamma from 

 Strath Beg, gentle and graceful- — playing with her 

 pebbles in her girlhood up among the hills, and 

 getting thoughtful and calm, and resting in bright 

 smooth pools as she grows on to womanhood, — 

 shaded and fringed all the way down by modest 

 alder copse, glancing and twinkling between the 

 dark-green leaves. Her end, again to return to the 

 mighty daughter, — it is not right to call that an end- 



