42 LIFE AT ROSEHALL. 



here and there a pack of grouse rose, alighting again before they 

 had flown a hundred yards, as if fully understanding that grouse 

 shooting was not the order of the day, and strutting along with 

 their necks stretched up, seemed to care little for my presence. 

 The ring-ousel flitted from rock to rock, uttering its wild and 

 sweet note. Truly there is great enjoyment gained by the early 

 riser; everything in nature has a pleasant aspect, and seems 

 happy and thankful to see the light of another sun. 



The great mountain to the west looked magnificent as its gray 

 corries and cliffs were lighted up by the morning rays. A noble 

 pile of rock and heather is that mountain, and well named Ben 

 Mhor, or the Big Mountain not a triton amongst minnows, but 

 a tritori amongst tritons. The golden eagle, to add grandeur to 

 the scene, was sweeping through the sky high above me, and 

 apparently eyeing my canine companion with mingled curiosity 

 and appetite. Once or twice in his circles he came so near that 

 I was half inclined to send a rifle-ball at him, but as often as I 

 stopped my walk with this intention, the noble bird wheeled off 

 again, and at last, remembering his breakfast hour was past, flew 

 off in a straight line at a great height towards the loch to the 

 north of us, where he probably recollected having seen some 

 dead or sickly sheep during his flight homewards the evening 

 before. 



I had several hours to spare before the time of meeting 

 Donald, so I diverged here and there, wherever I thought it likely 

 I should find deer, and then kept a northerly course in order to 

 look at some burns and grassy ground near the loch, according to 

 Malcolm's advice. The loch itself was bright and beautiful, and 

 the small islands on it looked like emeralds set in silver. With 

 my glass I could distinguish eight or nine wild geese, as they 

 ruffled the water in their morning gambols, having probably just 

 returned from grazing on the short green grass that grew on 

 different spots near the water's edge. These grassy places were the 

 sites of former habitations, and were still marked by the line of 

 crumbled walls, now the constant resort of the few wild geese that 

 breed every year on the lonely and unvisited islands of the loch. 



