LOCH-NA-LARICH 177 



will bring me home again ; but although I 

 advance that fact as one of the reasons for my 

 choice, my host laughingly shakes his head, 

 for he knows that it is not at all likely that 

 I shall be back much before dinner-time. How- 

 ever, he wishes me good luck, and I am soon 

 strolling through the wood and up the brae, 

 accompanied by my black spaniel Ben, and by 

 a lad carrying my luncheon, rod, and impedi- 

 menta. My mackintosh for once I determine to 

 leave at home. 



Travellers who have been in the Holy Land 

 describe the Sea of Galilee as being of the shape 

 of a harp, and the same simile will give a good 

 idea of the little mountain tarn which breaks 

 upon my view in a cup of the hills below Cruach 

 Lussa. There is no bloom yet upon the heather 

 which clothes the moors around it, as it is early 

 June, but the young bracken is shooting up 

 through last year's withered fronds ; and the 

 small birch trees which fringe the opposite side 

 of the little bay at the near end are brilliant 

 with their early green. Great kingcups shine 

 like stars among the stones at the side, and the 

 sandpipers busily flit from rock to rock, while the 

 air is musical with their voices, and the louder 

 bubbling breeding-season note of the curlew 

 which hovers over the opposite brae. Two or 

 three mallards fly away as we approach, and a 

 matronly duck leads a numerous brood of some 



M 



