82 ARDENMOHR. 



new peeps of rugged corries and lonely little glens, 

 and at last I reached a gap in the hills opening on 

 cultivated fields and fir-woods. 



I now found, by looking at my pocket-map of 

 Ardenmohr, that I was near the march, and about 

 five miles from the Lodge, so I turned to the right, 

 and went along the course of a brawling burn till I 

 came to a black wood, part of the indigenous forest 

 that once covered so much of the Scottish moorland. 

 None of the trees were of great size, but many 

 had a look of great antiquity, and, on going through 

 the wood, scarce a living thing was seen or heard, 

 save a few tiny woodpeckers creeping on the great 

 boles of the trees, and a pair of " scraichin " jays 

 flitting about the dense crowns of the pines. All 

 through the wood the underground is mostly open; 

 but in some parts, especially near the end, I found 

 a wilderness of bush, huge bramble, juniper, and 

 dense willows cover enough for a wild elephant 

 or a covey of rocs. 



Apropos of rocs, what has become of those 

 charming children's stories of old times ? And what 

 dry waifs of fiddle-faddle and false morality now 

 supersede them ! For our poor town boys in these 

 delicate times have no fight and make friends, no 



