104 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



On the llth September, a rather too clear morning deter- 

 mined me to risk my " ptarmigan day." I had at that time 

 two excellent rock-dogs ; one a black setter with indomitable 

 pluck to search every stony cairn his assistant an old pointer 

 of famed pedigree, and staid as Ben Loy itself. 



With a game-pouch slung over my shoulder and the trusty 

 canine couple at heel, I left Glenfalloch door before eight 

 o'clock. A short walk along the highroad leads to the rough 

 steep path winding over the first height. Surrounded by 

 natural strips of wood, and skirting the Kuron burn, whose 

 dark and drumly linns raved from the rocky abyss, this track 

 ended in the heathery morasses at the foot of the Kuron hill. 

 Hitherto I had been threading the covert-haunts of roes and 

 black-game, but now the route lay for eight long miles among 

 the domains of grouse and deer. 



Although the Kuron hill, from its very ruggedness, some- 

 times gave a short stretch of tolerably level walking, these 

 eight miles of moorland were nevertheless one continued climb 

 till they reached the base of Ben Loy. Sometimes a pack 

 of grouse or a solitary old cock would rise within shot, but I 

 prevented all unnecessary loading of the game-bag by carry- 

 ing an empty gun. 



The heather at last began to merge into green patches, and 

 the granite boulders became more frequent. In place of 

 starting up singly at intervals, the alpine hares showed in 

 threes and fours on all the adjacent knolls; and in their 

 midst was the fox's cairn, where the last spring litter had 

 been destroyed. 



Towering before me in solitary majesty, its crown of granite 

 gleaming in the autumn sun, the sharp peaks and beetling 

 scaurs of Ben Loy gave proof that the day's labour was only 

 about to begin. The deceptive intervening heights and 

 hollows made the mountain appear close before me, but there 

 was still a good extent of ragged grass-ground between my 

 standpoint and the first steep pull, which was really the base 



