A SUMMER RAMBLE AMOXG THE HEBRIDES. 197 



feet of a large wasp's nest, suspended to a jutting bough of 

 furze, the wasps I took especial care not to disturb. I press- 

 ed on, first through a broad belt of the forest, occupied mainly 

 by melancholy Scotch firs ; next through an opening, in which 

 I found an American-looking village of mingled cottages, gar- 

 dens, fields, and wood ; and then through another broad fo- 

 rest-belt, in which the ground is more varied with height 

 and hollow than in the first, and in which I found only forest 

 trees, mostly oaks and beeches. I heard the roar of the Find- 

 horn before me, and premised I was soon to reach the river ; 

 but whether I should pursue it upwards or downwards, in 

 order to find the ferry at Sluie, was more than I knew. There 

 lay in my track a beautiful hillock, that reclines on the one 

 side to the setting sun, and sinks sheer on the other, in a 

 mural sandstone precipice, into the Findhorn. The trees 

 open over it, giving full access to the free air and the sun- 

 shine ; and I found it as thickly studded over with berries 

 as if it had been the special care of half a dozen gardeners. 

 The red light fell yet redder on the thickly inlaid cranberries 

 and stone-brambles of the slope, and here and there, though 

 so late in the season, on a patch of wild strawberries ; while 

 over all, dark, delicate blaeberries, with their flour-bedusted 

 coats, were studded as profusely as if they had been peppered 

 over it by a hailstone cloud. I have seldom seen such a 

 school-boy's paradise ; and I was just thinking what a rare 

 discovery I would have deemed it had I made it thirty years 

 sooner, when I heard a whooping in the wood, and four little 

 girls, the eldest scarcely eleven, came bounding up to the hil- 

 lock, their lips and fingers already dyed purple, and dropped 

 themselves down among the berries with a shout They were 

 sadly startled to find they had got a companion in so solitary 

 a recess ; but I succeeded in convincing them that they were 

 in no manner of danger from him ; and on asking whether 

 there was any of them skilful enough to show me the way 



