LOCH A WE 63 



pages of proof that ' life, which began as a cell, with 

 a c, is to end as a sell, with an s.' It should be 

 added that the boatman has given his consent to 

 the printing of his yarns. On being offered a 

 moiety of the profits, he observed that he had no 

 objection to these, but that he entirely declined to 

 be responsible for any share of the expenses. 

 Would that all authors were as sagacious, for then 

 the amateur novelist and the minor poet would 

 vex us no more. 



Perhaps I should note that I have not made the 

 boatman say ' whateffer,' because he doesn't. The 

 occasional use of the imperfect is almost his only 

 Gaelic idiom. It is a great comfort and pleasure, 

 when the trout do not rise, to meet a skilled and 

 unaffected narrator of the old beliefs, old legends, 

 as ancient as the hills that girdle and guard the 

 loch, or as antique, at least, as man's dwelling 

 among the mountains — the Yellow Hill, the Calf 

 Hill, the Hill of the Stack. The beauty of the 

 scene, the pleasant talk, the daffodils on the green 

 isle among the Celtic graves, compensate for a 

 certain ' dourness ' among the fishes of Loch Awe. 



