WESTLAND MAY 123 



within houses built with hands. This is only make- 

 believe winter after all ; there must be places where 

 the cold cannot come. Clearly, the best of these 

 will be one of those narrow, deep glens they would 

 be called combes in the south country which seam 

 the coast of Galloway throughout its many wind- 

 ings. There is one such glen close at hand Physgil 

 Glen, they call it ; what wind there is blows off the 

 land ; so there, if anywhere, may foretaste of summer 

 be had. 



The glen is thickly wooded with ash, it is true, 

 so there is no leaf-canopy now; but beneath the 

 grey stems the steep banks and the level spots 

 beside the burn are covered with a dense tapestry of 

 wood-hyacinths. Do not call them bluebells, dear 

 Miss Sassenach ! Our country-people call them, un- 

 musically, ' craw-taes ' ; but, as all the world ought 

 to know, though it does not, the ' bluebells of Scot- 

 land ' are not these, but the summer flowers which 

 you choose to call harebells. Hyacinths, then, in 

 sheets and streaks, in clumps and scatterment, of 

 soft, exquisite blue, with just enough heads of pure 

 white among them to make one grateful that these 

 are the exception, else would there be lost one of 

 the most lavish displays of rare colour that Nature 



