LONE LOCH WEE 71 



who was always in the best of spirits. Even the 

 number of children he had to maintain did not 

 seem to depress him, and their name was legion. 

 Each year, when we returned to the loch, his wife 

 was nursing a new baby of two or three months 

 old, and it invariably turned out to be a boy. As 

 you approached the house you could see the young- 

 sters scurrying to the door from all directions, as 

 rabbits make for their burrow. And if you looked 

 into the kitchen, or living-room, you would see 

 many pairs of glittering eyes peeping from out the 

 tiers of cupboard-like bunks that lined the farther 

 side of the room ; and perhaps a couple of the 

 children clinging to their mother's skirts, while the 

 baby thoroughly enjoyed itself over the sucking of 

 an old rusty nail. 



The keeper, upon our asking permission to use 

 the boat, speedily obtained the oars from a neigh- 

 bouring outhouse ; but he could not give us much 

 hope as to the probability of our obtaining sport on 

 the loch. " There's an odd yin in it yet," was the 

 sum of his encouragement, but he feared it was 

 "ower lown and cawlm the day." 



In spite, however, of our failure to draw a hopeful 

 prognostication of sport from Mr. Maxwell, once we 



