TARN 101 



desolate. A chilly, cell-like dankness 

 pervaded that mighty hollow in the 

 hills, around which the vapour now 

 swept in unending ghost-like columns. 

 Then the deathly silence was at last 

 made hideous by the raven's cry; a 

 quick succession of half-stifled, gulping 

 croaks pierced the veil of vapour and 

 were echoed and re-echoed from rock to 

 rock. In derisive chuckles and fiendish 

 grunts the evil spirit of the mountains 

 announced the day, and verily it was a 

 shuddering, hellish sound befitting such 

 an eerie place. 



On turning round I discovered that 

 my "gillie" had already fled, and I did 

 not overtake him until well on the way 

 home. There he was, sitting against a 

 wall, nursing his bony knees, shivering 

 with the cold, and doing his best to ab- 

 sorb some of the warmth of the pale sun- 

 light. An empty beer-bottle, which had 

 contained his whisky, lay by his side, 



