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. 

 ' 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 



