Fox's Earth to Mountain Tarn 



From the sheer walls of cut peat, stuck out 

 branches and trunks of trees, telling that the 

 bare scene had known better times. But that 

 did not improve matters ; any more than a tumble- 

 down dwelling does a dreary outlook, or a stranded 

 wreck the seashore. Wearing on for afternoon, 

 the thoughts wandered ahead to that half-way 

 house, which each turn of the road seemed to put 

 so much further away. On appearing, it but 

 added to the desolation. 



By the edge of one of a string of marshy lochs, 

 with a background of one of a series of dark peaty 

 hills, it was part of the scene as depressing, as 

 bare, as inhospitable. A boy brought in a two- 

 pound trout, which he had caught on a set line ; 

 it looked dark and forbidding, as though cut out of 

 peat. The lochs, I was told, were full of such 

 trout a fact I afterwards found out for myself. 



Over these hills the Shetland ponies roam ; 

 by these dark lochs they drink. They pass 

 along the skyline ; they toss their manes ; and 

 with dripping lips vanish into the shadow of the 

 peat. No wonder if they are elfish in size, some- 

 times also in spirit. Other than these was not 

 much by the way. Parts seemed too bare to 

 support life, or make it worth living. Even a 

 wild creature that asks for so little would have 

 given up the ghost from sheer ennui. 



Previous attempts to naturalize grouse had 

 failed. Within the last two or three years, the 



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