LOCH-FISHING 143 



the ground at our feet and fled in ludicrous panic, 

 shrieking his absurd appeal, " Go back ! go back ! " 

 I was longing earnestly for the end of the arduous 

 climb, when I came suddenly and unexpectedly upon 

 the loch. I shuddered at sight of it. Two great funereal 

 piles of rock stood threateningly in front, as if set to bar 

 the way, and between and beyond them lay a black, 

 repulsive water. A heron rose 

 slowly from the bank as we ap- 

 proached, and, with hoarse croak, 

 flapped heavily into the mist, which 

 swathed the hills as a shroud, and writhed 

 along the loch in thin wisps like the wraiths 

 of long- forgotten dead asleep beneath its 

 inky wave. The loch was wrapped in an 

 atmosphere of awe. It suggested all kinds of grue- 

 some thoughts ; of graves, and charnel houses, and 

 the dim, dark under-world beyond. Murder and 

 sudden death lurked in its sullen depths. Crimes 

 unspeakable lay hidden beneath its sombre waters. 

 I neared it with hesitating feet, and it was almost in 

 dread that I cast a fly on its forbidding surface. 

 What it contained I knew not, but surely no mortal 

 trout swam in that unholy tarn. 



