ommon among old hunters as the snaring of
conies; but give me a bush or a tree here and there in a flat land like
this, and an herb here and there at my feet, and while winds from the
north blow snell, I'll pick my way by them. It's my notion that they
learn one many things at colleges that are no great value in the real
trials of life. You, I make no doubt, would be kenning the name of an
herb in the Latin, and I have but the Gaelic for it, and that's good
enough for me; but I ken the use of it as a traveller's friend whenever
rains are smirring and mists are blowing."

"I daresay there's much in what you state," I confessed, honestly
enough; "I wish I could change some of my schooling for the art of
winning off Moor Rannoch."

He changed his humour in a flash. "Man," said he, "I'm maybe giving
myself overmuch credit at the craft; it's so seldom I put it to the
trial that if we get clear of the Moor before night it'll be as much to
your credit as to mine."

As it happened, his vanity about his gift got but a brief gratification,
for he had not led me by his signs more than a mile on the way to the
south when we came again to a cluster of lochans, and among them a large
fellow called Loch Ba, where the mist was lifting quickly. Through the
cleared air we travelled at a good speed, off the Moor, among Bredalbane
braes, and fast though we went it was a weary march, but at last we
reached Loch Tulla, and from there to the Bridge of Urchy was no more
than a meridian daunder.

The very air seemed to change to a kinder feeling in this, the frontier
of the home-land. A scent of wet birk was in the wind. The river,
hurrying through grassy levels, glucked and clattered and plopped most
gaily, and bubble chased bubble as if all were in a haste to reach
Lochow of the bosky isles and holy. Oh! but it was heartsome, and as we
rested ourselves a little on the banks we were full of content to know
we were now in a friendly country, and it was a fair pleasure to think
that the dead leaves and broken branches we threw in the stream would be
dancing in all likelihood round the isle of Innishael by nightfall.

We ate our chack with exceeding content, and waited for a time on the
chance that some of our severed company from Dalness would appear,
though M'Iyer's instruction as to the rendezvous had been given on the
prospect that they would reach the Brig earlier in the day. But after an
hour or two of waiting there was no sign of them