CHAPTER XXIX. 



The Vernal Equinox— Beauty of Loch Leven— Astronomical Notes — How an old Woman 

 supposed to possess the Evil Eye escaped a cruel death. 



The vernal equinox has come and gone, unaccompanied this year 

 [April 1872], as it was unheralded and unannounced, by anything 

 like the storms that from the earliest times have been observed to 

 be attendant on the sun's crossing the equator. It is by no means 

 certain, however, that these storms may not even now be a-brewing, 

 to make themselves yet felt in all their fierceness, for we have 

 noticed in recent years particularly that what are called the 

 " equinoctial gales " quite as frequently follow, as accompany or 

 precede, the exact equality of day and night. We have just had a 

 fortnight of genuine March weather — clear, cold days, and frosty 

 nights — the air snell and biting, to be sure, and keen of edge, as 

 might be expected on the uplands ; but in places sheltered from the 

 east and north it is delightfully bright and sunny, the incessant 

 song of birds, the hum of wild bees, and the gay fluttering of early 

 butterflies, making one think of Whitsuntide rather than All Fools' 

 Day ; . the twittering of swallows and the cheerj^ notes of the 

 cuckoo alone are wanting to make the illusion perfect, and these, 

 unless the weather should undergo some extraordinary and un- 

 expected change, must certainly soon be heard, much earlier this 

 year, we should think, than usual. We are particularly favoured 

 in this respect along the northern shores of Loch Leven. Here, to 

 quote Burns — 



' ' Simmer first unfaulds her robe, and here the langest tarry ; " 



