To Mountain Tarn 



slopes is as good as a scramble on the banks. 

 Neither suggests music, and both are better than 

 a gallop. The wildling of the breezy heights is 

 quite as interesting as the wildling of the cool 

 water. If the hunt saved the otter, why should 

 it not also save a comrade ? It is wretched form 

 to give the fox over to be pelted and baited, 

 trapped and shot at by clowns ; and all for lack 

 of wit. 



If men do not care to hunt the most resourceful 

 and beautiful animal left to us if women do not 

 dare to climb to the moraines, when the shadows 

 bend west across the glens, ere they shorten on 

 the self-shadowing hills if the glorious brush 

 serves no nobler purpose than for the shepherd's 

 dog to worry, let it be. Perhaps it is as well so. 

 Sport might spoil the wildling, as it spoils all it 

 takes in hand, might make it a pet or a sneak. 

 In spite of persecution it abounds ; because of 

 persecution it is virile. If a few adults are shot 

 and a few litters starved, sufficient escape to 

 breed again. Some more cunning lair will be 

 found. It is all over the highlands and the 

 southern uplands, and there is the fierce satisfac- 

 tion of having no one to thank. 



In the grave wild life are play times ; and 

 moods, seen not at all, or only by those who are 

 much abroad. When the crimson is deepening 

 into purple along the slopes, the cubs come from 

 the lair under cairn or moraine for the children's 



13 



