he broads of Loch
Macaterick, there came another burn with clearer sparkling water and
much sand in the pools. There were trout in both, as one might see by
stealing up to the edge of the brow and looking over quickly. But owing
to the drought, there was water only in the pools of Eglin, and often
but the smallest trickle beneath the stones.

I had a beauty out in a few moments; for so eager was I that I leaped
into the burn just as I was, without so much as waiting to take off any
of my garments. So in the pool there was a-rushing and a-chasing till I
had him out on the grass, his speckled sides glinting bonny on the
heather as he tossed himself briskly from side to side. I followed the
burn down to the fork of the water that flows from Loch Macaterick, and
fished all the pools in this manner. By that time I had enough for three
meals at the least; or perhaps, considering the poor state of our
appetites, for more than that. I put those we should not want that day
into a pretty little fish-pond, which makes a kind of backwater on one
of the burns springing down from the side of the Rig of the Star. And
this was the beginning of the fish-pond which continued to supply us
with food all the time we abode there.

While I was in the river bottom, it chanced that I looked up the great
smooth slopes of the opposite hill, which is one of the range of Kells.

There is a little shaggy clump of trees on the bare side of it, and I
could have sworn that among the trees I saw people stirring.

I could only think that the people there were wanderers like ourselves,
or else spies sent to keep an eye on this wide, wild valley between the
Garryhorn hill and the Spear of the Merrick.

So I came back to the cave no little dashed in spirit, in spite of my
great successes with the trout. I said nothing about what I had seen to
Auld Anton, for he was both weak and feverish. And though certainly
mending, he was not yet able to move out into the sunshine and lie among
the bracken, a thing which would have done him much good on these still
warm days.

But I made a fire with heather and the roots of ancient trees, which in
that strange wild desert stick out of the peat at every step. There I
roasted the trout, of which Anton Lennox ate heartily. I think they had
more relish to a sick man's palate than whaup eggs, even though these
came to him as it were in a miraculous manner; while I had guddled the
trout with my boots and breeks on.

Wh