those of his two companions were but
faintly discernible."[7]

We are now at the upper extremity of Loch Avon, or, as it is pronounced,
Loch A'an, and beside the far-famed Stone of Shelter. We had a standing
feud with James Hogg about the extent of Loch Avon, ever since the day
of that celebrated encampment on Dee-side. Let us see. Thirty years have
now rolled by since that unmatched gathering of choice spirits--nay,
seventeen have passed and gone since we made regretful allusion, when
commemorating the Moray floods, to the history and fortunes of those who
were then assembled. Five years later, the Shepherd was himself gathered
to the dust; but he stuck to his principles to the last, and in a
discussion of the subject not many months before his death, after he
had just remarked that he had "a blessed constitution," he reiterated
his old statement, that Loch Avon exceeded twenty miles in length. His
views on this subject were indeed a sort of gauge of the Shepherd's
spirits. In his sombre moments he appeared to doubt if he were quite
correct in insisting that the length was twenty miles; when he was in
high spirits he would not abate one inch of the thirty. Now, when one
man maintains that a lake is thirty miles long, and another that it is
but a tenth part of that length, it is not always taken for granted that
the moderate man is in the right; but on the contrary, paradoxical
people are apt to abet his opponent, and it was provoking that we could
never find any better authority against the Shepherd than his own very
suspicious way of recording his experience at Loch Avon in a note to the
_Queen's Wake_: "I spent a summer day in visiting it. The hills were
clear of mist, yet the heavens were extremely dark--the effect upon the
scene exceeded all description. My mind during the whole day experienced
the same sort of sensation as if I had been in a dream." But if our
departed friend has left any disciples, we are now able to adduce
against them the highest parochial authority. We are told in the new
Statistical Account that--"Loch Avon lies in the southern extremity of
the parish, in the bosom of the Grampian mountain. It is estimated at
_three miles long_ and a mile broad. The scenery around it is
particularly wild and magnificent. The towering sides of Ben-y-Bourd,
Ben Muich Dhui, and Ben Bainac, rise all around it, and their rugged
bases skirt its edges, except at the narrow outlet of the Avon at its
eastern extremity