154 ANGLING SKETCHES 



I was less so. The long da}'S of loneliness in 

 waste Glen Aline, and too many solitary cigarettes, 

 had probably injured my nerve. So, when I 

 suddenly heard a sigh and' the half-smothered 

 sound of a convulsive cough — hollow, if ever a 

 cough was hollow — hard by me, at my side £is it 

 were, and yet could behold no man, nor any place 

 where a man might conceal himself— nothing but 

 moor and sky and tufts of rushes — then I turned 

 away arid walked down the glen : not slowly. I 

 shall not deny that I often looked over my 

 shoulder as I went, and that, when I reached the 

 loch, I did not angle without many a backward 

 glance. Such an appearance and disappearance 

 as this, I remembered, were in the experience of 

 Sir Walter Scott. Lockhart does not tell the 

 anecdote, which is in a little anonymous volume, 

 ' Recollections of Sir Walter Scott,' published 

 before Lockhart's book. Sir Walter reports that 

 he was once riding across the. moor to Ashiesteil, 

 in the clear brown summer twilight, after sunset. 

 He saw a man a little way ahead of him, but, just 

 before he reached the spot, the man disappeared. 



