Wild Life of Scotland

water-wheel is audible half the way. There is an advantage in having the burn thus near. It is so irritating, after a walk of eight or ten miles, with the prospect of a similar distance back, to find that the meal miller shuts down the sluice, with the view of nursing the water in the dam, just as the rise is coming on; and keeps you sitting on the bank, among the buttercups and daisies, for a good two hours, until he sees fit to lift it again. I watch my opportunity after a little rain has freshened, without unduly raising or dirtying thewater, or when sunshine and shadow alternate without either gaining the advantage, or should the breeze blow fresh enough to put a ripple on the pools. And, notwithstanding those favourable appearances, and the expectations they excite, should the miller prove awkward, ? although friendly millers are more obliging than strangers,? I am still within easy reach of home. I can walk down the lane in the evening, when the blackbird is at his vesper, and, fishing or no fishing, spend a pleasant hour on the cool banks, not only without exertion, but with considerable benefit to my night's rest; returning in the twilight when the blackbird is uttering his chirpy scream. For years, all connection with the sea has been cut off by several miles of impure water; and that, perhaps, makes the fishing so much the more restful. All its suggestions are of green fields, and drinking cattle, and yellow iris, and the drowsy hum of innoc...