From Fox's Earth 



Skene. The dry lips are there of olden shores, 

 which the water kissed I know not how oft, and 

 the mould in which the liquid form lay pulsating 

 to the breath of the mountain breeze. At most 

 a tiny rill, born from the impending watershed, 

 runs through the centre. Once that rill was 

 the tail stream. It bore the surplus from the 

 olden loch. Two processes went on together 

 making for one issue. The still loch was silted 

 up by the waste of hill summits settling on the 

 bed. The restive tail stream fretted its channel. 

 In time the olden loch bled to death. The 

 parched lips, the bleached mould alone tell where 

 and what it was. 



Loch Skene is slowly bleeding. The tail 

 stream is the operator. It cuts ever deeper in 

 its short and restive course. It surges down, 

 ever more or less stained with its own waste. I 

 have tried to fish ; no need is there of wind. 

 The fly dances on the troubled surface, and the 

 bait sweeps whirling for an instant in some strong 

 though tiny maelstrom. Only the nimble among 

 the trout can aim or hold. Then it tumbles out 

 of sight, and must be looked at from below ; 

 spreading over the face of almost perpendicular 

 rock, and clinging, as it goes, in a thin white film, 

 so it reappears. No ledges are there where trout 

 may rest for another spring. It curves to the 

 west, as the Moffat burn, to reach the vale beyond, 

 and lose itself in the Annan. In this filmy 



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