36 ANGLING & ART IN SCOTLAND 



grey stones ; but it is asserted that at times, on 

 bright sunny days, the ancient causeways, which 

 once connected the island with the shores on two 

 sides, can still be distinctly traced beneath the 

 surface of the water. 



Close at hand, on the western shore, stands the 

 keeper's cottage, fringed with straggling spruces. 

 From it comes the reek of peat, whose scent is 

 occasionally wafted to the fisherman as he drifts 

 across the loch. It is interesting, this cottage, for 

 in it lived, for many years, that gem of Scottish 

 gamekeepers, the late Thomas Burnside. 



He was a man of a type fast disappearing ; one 

 who possessed a certain dry sense of humour, and 

 a picturesque and quaint way of expressing himself, 

 combined with characteristic native caution. His 

 caution, I can recollect, strongly manifested itself on 

 our first visit to the loch, when, after allowing us 

 to take out the boat — a boat so heavy that it was 

 only with difficulty that it could be made to move 

 through the water — he repeatedly warned us, most 

 solemnly, of the danger of running it on the 

 " stanes," assuring us that it was "but a wee 

 cawkle-shell of a thing." 



Burnside was an elderly man when I first knew 



