40 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



versary of Hogmanay, and found them again at their 

 revels. Unfortunately his correction, " Thursday," was 

 wrong and misleading, and put them all out of time, 

 although they had been right before. They punished 

 his interference by giving him the hump they had 

 taken off his friend's back the year before, so that he 

 had to pass through the remainder of his life with two 

 humps like a Bactrian camel. Many parallels will 

 suggest themselves to any student-of folk-lore, or even 

 to the child who has loved and studied the well-known 

 fairy tales collected by the brothers Grimm. 



I had not the same opportunities as Mrs. Murray 

 enjoyed for inviting the confidences of the old inhabi- 

 tants of cottage and clachan, but I have no doubt 

 that old world beliefs are still prevalent in Colonsay, 

 although it would require tact and sympathy to prevail 

 upon the shy witnesses to impart their experiences of 

 ghost and fairy. One curious instance occurs to me 

 as a proof that superstition still had a strong grip 

 upon my boatmen and their neighbours. I was very 

 fond of occasionally spending an hour or two at low 

 water catching prawns in the rock pools with a long- 

 handled spoon-shaped net. My modus operandi was 

 to dig the end of the iron rim into the sand at the 

 near side of the pool, and push it along the bottom, 

 stirring up the sand and searching the seaweed. 

 I had many pleasant days at Port Ornsa, on the 

 Strand opposite Garvard, and in many other bays ; 

 and there was no one to say me nay, until one 

 day I announced my intention of trying a very 

 likely-looking spot near the golf links at Machrins, 

 which takes its name, " Traigh na Tobar Fuar," from 

 the beautiful spring of crystal water which bubbles 



