STARS AT LA ML ASH. 37 



also Arran-bound. I see the latter vessel calling at 

 Kilchattan Bay, and note how the fishermen at the 

 pier are clearing their nets of the silvery herring they 

 have taken in the night, and how the forepart of their 

 boat has become a mass of fishes which will doubtless 

 soon be packed in the boxes on the quay and dis- 

 patched to feed the city-dwellers far and near. Then 

 I see Corrie nestling under Goat Fell and the hills 

 around, the flag waving over its little hotel, and girls 

 in bright lawn-tennis costumes staying their game 

 till the steamer has passed. 



Brodick also I see, with its castle perched on the 

 hill-side ; Lamlash, with its bay, and Holy Island 

 sheltering it ; and Whiting Bay too, with its big boats 

 that ferry passengers to and from the steamer. Here, 

 on this lazy day at Toward, one imagines these scenes 

 clearly enough, and wishes it were possible to see 

 them again, for the first time in all the beauty of a 

 sunny day. 



But there are "wells of content" at Toward, and 

 there is wealth of thought enough or oblivion of 

 most things, if you prefer the latter to be found 

 here on this sweltering August day. The Clyde is 

 like a lake, and the white-winged yachts are simply 

 playing the role of " painted ships " this morning, 

 and envying that beautiful steam-yacht lilac-tinted, 

 and neat and trim as a man-of-war which has just 

 rounded out of Rothesay Bay, and is making up the 

 estuary at a speed of fifteen knots or so. Over yonder, 

 the Cumbraes lie bathed in sunlight, and look like 

 golden isles set in a sea of glass. It was a cleric 

 dwelling on these islands who prayed that the 

 Almighty might " bless especially the Greater and 

 Lesser Cumbraes, and the adjacent islands of Great 



