314 THE SALMON FLY. 



shade " o'er cooing cushats and mossy banks, where Sabbath couples love 

 to roam and linger. 



The attentive eye is deeply moved by the pale blue of the heavens 

 visibly melting into a still paler gold that dies away in the orange towards 

 the horizon, over which hangs a thin veil of flame-tipped purple cloud, 

 letting a little bit of warm ground show through with variegated effects 

 of light. As a centre to the composition, a virtuoso is busily engaged on 

 the knoll in the foreground with his precious samples of potstones and 

 pseudomorphs. At uncertain intervals are groves of lofty pines, whose 

 weird gloom fittingly adorns the grandeur and mystery of the hills. Cleft 

 out from them is a half-choked ravine bedecked with budding green and 

 little streaks of water that sparkle among the sedges of the bracken- 

 covered banks. 'Drip, drip it comes in icy crystal drops from wreaths 

 of tangled moss ; and, here in baby jets and there in tiny trident falls, 

 forms a burn that gathers way and cuts through parish tiends and 

 stubbled land dotted with beehive huts, in which the Crofter, with happy 

 abandonment, wakes to the voice of the " wasteful cascade " below. 



Suddenly the peaceful scene is invaded by the pinions of a hungry 

 and hateful cormorant. Warily advancing inland, watchful over the 

 watercourse, he is, after all, only the acknowledged portent of bad luck ; 

 and, caring for nothing short of four drams of powder and an ounce and a 

 half of " No. 5," steals away with the international blessing, " Tubaist air 

 an eun mohr dhubh sid ! "* 



Meanwhile, hope springs eternal the fine splashes of a fish are 

 heard and the rings seen. In the lowland the flowers rise in clustering 

 beauty towards the towering rocks that cast an awful look below. From 

 the clefts in their sides a few straggling geans blossom out into rampant 

 trees, and if so be a wandering branch bears down, split and torn, it still 

 holds fast to the parent stem, and shelters beneath it the tesselated 

 pavement of Anglers' diverse beliefs. 



A little further round riverward on the bosom of the brown moorland 

 extend the Butts, now and again emitting little puffs of white smoke and 

 sharp tongues of fire that tell of fellow sportsmen's doings not far away. 



* Bother that big black bird there. 



