SPRING FISHING IN LOCH ARD. 241 
waving with natural forests of birch and oak, formed the 
borders of this enchanting sheet of water ; and, as their leaves 
rustled to the wind and twinkled in the sun, gave to the depth 
of solitude a sort’ of life and vivacity. 
“ Our route, though leading towards the lake, ‘had hitherto 
been so‘much shaded by wood, that we only from time to time 
obtained a glimpse of that beautiful sheet of water. But the 
road now suddenly emerged from the forest ground,and, winding 
close by the margin of the loch, afforded us a full view of its 
spacious mirror, which now, the breeze having totally subsided, 
reflected in still magnificence the high dark heathy mountains, 
huge grey rocks, and shaggy banks by which it is encircled. 
And that same night the travellers rested, in a fashion, 
at “the Clachan o’ Aberfoyle,” and there had that 
famous encounter in which the Bailie distinguished 
himself by his deeds with the red-hot culter. Why, 
there is the identical culter that made Inverashalloch’s 
plaid smell “like a singit sheep's head,” pendent from 
an iron ring in the tree before the hotel door; and it 
is another fact, remarkable also, but not more remark- 
able, that the culter has in former times been often 
sold to English and foreign tourists, and carried away 
to grace private museums in far countries. Farther 
up towards the loch, too, you shall have pointed out 
to you the very tree (looking rather young for its age) 
from which Bailie Nicol Jarvie hung suspended by 
his coat-tails during the fight between the caterans 
and the red-coats. On the other side of the hills, to 
the north, we find the story of Scott's ‘Lady of the 
Lake” in like manner more than half consolidated 
R 
