Sometimes a boulder, at a vast height, would stand disclosed. The wet upon it, from granite boss and yellow lichen, shimmered as though the fairy-folk who weave the rainbows were there at work. A space below would give way to the sudden leap of the hill-wind; and with a rush the sunlight would stream forward. Pine after pine would rear a green banner, from which mist-veils would float, or rise and sway like flags of a marching army. Then the ranks would close in again. Flying columns would converge from right and left; the pine-banners would vanish, as though in the smoke of battle: a mighty swaying mass would sweep upward, absorb the sunbeams and splinter their gleaming lances, till boulder after boulder would be captured and the bastioned heights themselves be environed in the assault. From the narrow loch at the end of the ravine, in the Pass of the Eagles, came the clamour of wildfowl. Now here, now there, as though a voice swam disembodied in that white sea, the double note of the cuckoo resounded. In a thick sob, the echo of the Linn o' Mairg came heavily at intervals. The muffled noise of Mairg Water crawled through the caverns of the mist. Though the two mountain-buttresses at the head of the pass are so close that the legend of a stag having taken the intervening space at a bound is not wholly incredible, it was impossible for one hid in the mist on Maol-Gorm of Iolair to see any one or anything on Maol-dubh of Tornideon. But through the mist, here suffused with a pale golden light, was audible on both spurs the bleating of travelling sheep and the barking of a dog, with, now and again, the lowing of cows. Suddenly a voice rang out, strong, clear, and blithe: "_Mo rùn geal, dìleas, Dìleas, dìleas, Mo rùn geal, dìleas Nach till thunall!_" Upon the spring of the last word came back from Iolair a voice as blithe and more sweet, the voice of a woman, with the lilt of a bird in it and all the joy of the sunshine: "_I go where the sheep go, With the sheep are my feet: I go where the kye go, Their breath is so sweet: O lover who loves me, Art thou half so fleet? Where the sheep climb, the kye go, There shall we meet!_" There was something so penetratingly sweet and joyous in the song that it stirred every bird on the hillside. The larks rose through the mist till they swam into the sunflood; the linties and shilfas and yellow-yites sent thrilling notes from gorse-bush to gorse-bush and from rowan to rowan. In the birk-shaws, the cries of the merles sounded like shrill flutes. To and fro went the sweet voices. Now the man's on Tornideon would ring blithely, now the woman's on Iolair respond. At last, as the cattle moved up the slopes, with the spreading sheep in advance, the shepherding voices fell further apart. Instinct led the kye to the sunlight, for all living things have their joy through the eyes. "_Sorcha, Sorcha, Sorcha!_" came ringing through the mist: "_Sorcha-mo-ciatach-nio-nag!_"