My shepherd's cottage
was four miles from the little-travelled road to Dalmellington; long bad
miles they were, across bog and heather. Consequently I seldom saw any
face of man, except in or about the cottage. My work went on rapidly
enough in such an undisturbed life. Empires might fall, parties might
break like bursting shells, and banks might break also: I plodded on with
my labour, and went a-fishing when the day promised well. There was a
hill loch (Loch Nan) about five miles away, which I favoured a good deal.
The trout were large and fair of flesh, and in proper weather they rose
pretty freely, and could be taken by an angler wading from the shore.
There was no boat. The wading, however, was difficult and dangerous,
owing to the boggy nature of the bottom, which quaked like a quicksand in
some places. The black water, never stirred by duck or moorhen, the dry
rustling reeds, the noisome smell of decaying vegetable-matter when you
stirred it up in wading, the occasional presence of a dead sheep by the
sullen margin of the tarn, were all opposed to cheerfulness. Still, the
fish were there, and the "lane," which sulkily glided from the loch
towards the distant river, contained some monsters, which took worm after
a flood. One misty morning, as I had just topped the low ridge from
which the loch became visible, I saw a man fishing from my favourite
bench.
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