CORRACH-BAH ; OR, A PLEA FOR THE WASTES. 241 



We had nearly gained the summit, from which there is a 

 charming view of the loch, when Johnny, who had sauntered 

 on a few paces before, stopped suddenly, and pointing to a 

 little bing of stones " This is the Tinkler's Cairn." " 'Deed, 

 no," says Sandy, with an air of superior knowledge ; " I'll show 

 the Tinkler's Cairn." And stumping on a few paces further, 

 " This is the very bit where the tinkler was murdered." I felt 

 a thrill of horror. A more appropriate place for a deed of blood 

 could not have been chosen ; it looked like haunted ground, so 

 bleak and bare and lonely, with its stern rocks of perpetual 

 gloom. After carefully examining the little cairn of stones, 

 which is always reared over the spot where a dead body is 

 found upon the mountains, I asked Sandy to relate the story, 

 the substance of which is as follows : A tinker and his terma- 

 gant wife had long travelled the country. He was much older 

 than his wife, who was a woman of immense muscular power, and 

 nearly six feet high. " The puir body," said Sandy, " had little 

 peace wi' her. A perfect she-deevil was Kirsty ; I kent her weel. 

 Mony a day after the deed was done she travelled the country, 

 and her sons are to the fore yet." One day the tinker and his 

 wife left Cladich, and took their course over this mountain. 

 From what motive is not known, but when they came to this 

 spot, she seized a stone, murdered her wretched husband, then 

 coolly walked on to the next shieling, where she slept, and in 

 the morning pursued her way through the hills. A shepherd 

 soon after discovered the poor tinker, lying stark and gory 

 upon his cold hard bed. The woman was taken up, but was 

 dismissed for want of evidence. Life was held light in the 

 Highlands in those days, and soon little was said or thought 

 about the poor lost tinker or his tyrant mate. 



I felt relieved to quit this dismal scene, and to descend the 

 more sunny side of the hill. We were now threading the 

 waving woods of Sonachan and Eock Hill, where the blithe 

 mavis was pouring its evening melody from the topmost bough 



Q 



