Part 19

How many a man at the end of July or the beginning of August, worn out with his work in Parliament, or the Law Courts, or elsewhere, turns his face and his thoughts to the North, and finds even in his anticipations and dreams of the days to come refreshment and solace! In most things in this life the anticipation is far greater than the reality, but not so in this case. In the hearts of how many men and women do the words of Aytoun find a responsive echo:

Give me but one hour of Scotland,

* * * * *

Southern gales are not for me; Though the glens are white with winter, Place me there and set me free.

Why is it that so many persons, young and old, and of such different character, habits, and classes, are fascinated and held by the spell of this country? What is the motive which is common to them all, if there is one? No doubt with some it is the longing for rest and change of scene, or the opportunity of meeting old friends or relatives in the far North, with others the desire for sport or the gratification of artistic tastes, and with others the ardent yearning to hear again the old familiar sounds, familiar since their early childhood--the sound of the rushing burn, the breaking of the sea on the rock-bound shore, the call of the sea-birds--and to see once more the high hills and silvery lochs and scent again the fragrant heather. But underlying all these, and perhaps more often than not quite unconsciously, there is one dominant governing motive which is surely spiritual rather than material--the desire for the environment which will uplift and ennoble, and with it bring a sense of being nearer to the pure--nearer to the things that are unseen and eternal--removed from all that is coarse and material.

By FINLAY MACKINNON.]

I well remember on one occasion discussing the question of the future world with a Highland keeper, and the emphatic way in which he said, “One thing is certain, and that is, that no one could be an atheist if he spent his life on the mountains.” I also remember that, curiously enough, the same observation was made by one Cambridge undergraduate to another, the speaker having been in the habit of spending days and nights camping out on the mountains in his father’s Highland property.

It is not inappropriate that in the Gaelic language the words used to signify “death” and “died” are not the same when used in reference to a human being as the words which are used in reference to an animal, the former words, caochladh (substantive), chaochail (verb), signifying a change or passing from one state of life into another, the latter bas (substantive), bhasaich (verb), extinction or annihilation.

On the sea coast, at the mouth of one of the sea lochs on the west coast of Ross-shire, I have often waited for the dawn, looking up the loch towards the high hills in the distance, and, whilst I waited, there would come into my mind those impressive words of the prophet Isaiah, “Watchman, what of the night?” The watchman said, “The morning cometh.” No one who has had this experience and seen the sun rise in its splendour over the high hills, flooding the surface of the sea with brilliant crimson light, will ever forget the scene, or the uplifting of spirit and sense of abiding peace which it imparted.

INDEX

Acanthyllis caudacuta, 40, 55

Acanthyllis gigantea, 55

Aeroplane, observations on flight of birds from, 50

Age of stags, 110-11

Air speed, 25

A Joy for Ever, 181

Alpine swift, 41-2, 49-53, 56-7

American golden plover, 33

An Angler’s Paradise, 191

Applecross, 141-2

Apus, 53

Armour, G. Denholm, 58

Attadale, 73

Australia, birds of fastest flight in, 54

Avicultural Magazine, 54 n.

Aytoun, 218

Baker, E. Stuart, 55

Balfour-Browne, Vincent, 164