CHAPTEE LXI. 



Overland from Balluchulish to Oban on a ' Pet Day ' in February — Story of Clack Ruric — 

 Castle Stalker : an Old Stronghold of the Stewarts of Appin — James IV. — Charles II. — 

 Magpies— Dun-Mac-Uisneachan. 



With all their tendency, in their every reference to the past, to 

 become laudatores temporis acti, the sturdy upholders of the 

 superiority of all that was, in comparison with anything and every- 

 thing that is, our weather-wise octogenarian friends here are all 

 agreed that so summer-like a February [1878] month they never 

 knew before. It is true that in making this admission they shake 

 their heads sapiently, and hint that no good can come of such an 

 unnatural commingling of the times and seasons. It will be well, 

 they add, if before cuckoo day {mun d'thig latha na cuaig) we 

 haven't to pay for it all in the shape of storm and cold at a time 

 when these are as unseasonable and out of place as is summer calm 

 and summer sunshine now. It was amusing to see these honest 

 old croakers selecting the coziest nooks air cliul gaoithe's air aodain 

 greine, as the Fingalian tale has it, — that is, at the back of the 

 wind and in the face of the sun — and thoroughly enjoying the calm 

 and sunshine at the very moment that they would impress upon us 

 the unnaturalness and unseasonableness of it all. The first fortnight 

 of February was, indeed, wonderfully fine ; from the beginning of 

 the month up to the evening of St. Valentine's Day, more like the 

 close of April or early May than anything usually looked for while 

 the sun is still in Aquarius. Driving overland to Oban on the' 

 11 th, and, by the ferries of Ballachulish, Sliian, and Connel, a 

 very beautiful drive it is, hardly to be equalled elsewhere even in 



