82 <I(4{MBLES OF A VOZMINIS 



Kindly folk they are that inhabit the rude cottages 

 which, among slender patches of oats and scanty sowings 

 of potatoes, nestle in the sheltered hollows among the 

 hills that bound the loch. Crossing a strip of corn-land 

 bright with abundant marigolds, we made our way to 

 one of the houses. A pleasant-faced woman the master 

 was away at sea called off with a few words of Gaelic 

 the great, gaunt dogs that disputed the right of way, and 

 greeted with hesitating speech the strangers, slowly 

 shaping her thoughts in the unfamiliar tongue. Her 

 room was bare and cheerless ; there was little in it but 

 the dresser with its quaintly-patterned plates, a crazy 

 stool or two, and the huge chest that held the winter 

 stock of meal. But the peat fire glowing on the spacious 

 hearth, the freely offered milk and oatcakes had an air 

 of gracious hospitality. The dogs preserved a sort of 

 armed neutrality, not understanding the dialect of the 

 Sassenach, but, won over at last by bribery and caresses, 

 they parted from us without further signs of hostility. 



Past the houses, higher up the stream that wanders 

 to the sea is more than one fresh-water loch among the 

 hollows of the hills, fringed with pale lobelias, and with 

 white water-lilies floating among patches of soft and 

 shining green, haunts of heron and wild duck, and 

 havens for storm-driven seafowl when the wind blows 

 hard to the land. The air was keen along the shelterless 

 shore beneath us ; but here under a brow of granite we 

 lie among the scented heather, watching the gulls drift 

 seaward from the hills, the straight flight of the mallard 

 down the lake, the hover of the kestrel on the windy heath. 



