The northward foreheads of ancient summits ; in 



Mountain January, when there is white silence, and the 

 blue flitting shadow of the merlin's wing ; in 

 March, when in the south glens the cries of 

 lambs are a lamenting music, and the scream 

 of the eagle is like a faint bugle-call through 

 two thousand feet of flowing wind. Few, 

 however, would really care 'to be away from 

 home' in those months when snow and wind 

 and cloud and rain are the continually recurrent 

 notes in the majestic Mountain Symphony. 

 1 To see in a picture, to read of in a story or 

 poem, that is delightful ; but . . . well, one 

 needs fine weather to enjoy, the hills and the 

 moorlands.' That, in effect, is what I have 

 commonly heard, or discerned in the evasive 

 commonplace. It is not so with those who 

 love the mountain-lands as the cushat loves 

 the green twilight of beech or cedar, as the 

 mew loves troubled waters and the weaving of 

 foam. I remember, a year or so ago, being 

 impressed by the sincerity of a lowlander 

 whom I met on the road among the Perth- 

 shire mountains, in a region where the hills 

 frowned and there was silence save for the 

 hoarse sea-murmur of pines and the surge of 

 a river hidden under boughs of hornbeam 

 and leaning birch. I forget whence he had 

 come, but it was from a place where the low 



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