'But it is so far away, Ronald; are you certain you can afford the time?' she was bound, in common fairness, to ask.
'Oh yes, I can afford the time,' said he, 'even if this should have to be my last day on the loch. Besides, if we do not treat you well, maybe you'll never come back.'
'And what is the use of our coming back, when you won't be here?' she was on the point of saying, but she did not say it, fortunately.
Then they set forth, on this still summer-like day; and they hailed the other boat in passing, and told them of their intended voyage of exploration. Indeed their prospects of sport at the setting out were anything but promising; the long levels of the lake were mostly of a pale glassy blue and white; and the little puffs of wind that stirred the surface here and there into a shimmer of silver invariably died down again, leaving the water to become a mirror once more of rock and tree and hill. But she was well content. This was an unknown world into which they were now penetrating; and it was a good deal more beautiful than the upper end of the lake (where the best fishing ground was) with which they had grown so familiar. Here were hanging woods coming right down to the water's edge; and lofty and precipitous crags stretching away into the pale blue sky; and winding bays and picturesque shores where the huge boulders, green and white and yellow with lichen, and the rich velvet moss, and the withered bracken, and the silver-clear stems of the birch trees were all brilliant in the sun. The only living creatures that seemed to inhabit this strange silent region were the birds. A pair of eagles slowly circled round and round, but at so great a height that they were but a couple of specks which the eye was apt to lose; black-throated divers and golden-eyed divers, disturbed by these unusual visitors, rose from the water and went whirring by to the upper stretches of the lake; a hen-harrier hovered in mid-air, causing a frantic commotion among the smaller birds beneath; the curlews, now wheeling about in pairs, uttered their long warning whistle; the peewits called angrily, flying zig-zag, with audible whuffing of their soft broad wings; the brilliant little redshanks flew like a flash along the shore, just skimming the water; and two great wild-geese went by overhead, with loud, harsh croak. And ever it was Ronald's keen eye that first caught sight of them; and he would draw her attention to them; and tell her the names of them all. And at last—as they were coming out of one of the small glassy bays, and as he was idly regarding the tall and rocky crags that rose above the birchwoods—he laughed lightly.
'Ye glaiket things,' said he, as if he were recognising some old friends, 'what brings ye in among the sheep?'
'What is it, Ronald?' she asked—and she followed the direction of his look towards those lofty crags, but could make out nothing unusual.
'Dinna ye see the hinds?' he said quietly.
'Where—where?' she cried, in great excitement; for she had not seen a single deer all the time of her stay.
'At the edge of the brown corrie—near the sky-line. There are three of them—dinna ye see them?'
'No, I don't!' she said impatiently.