It rained heavily at intervals all night, and, though it has cleared a little since day-break, there is not a patch of blue to be seen yet in the sky, and the torn skirts of the clouds are still trailing low among the hills. The day can hardly brighten now before twelve o’clock, and as the woods, at anyrate, will be rain-laden and weeping for hours, the walk through “fair Kirkconnel Lea” is not to be thought of. The lawn, too, is out of condition for tennis. But see! the burn, brown with peat and flecked with foam, is running like ale under the bridge, and though the spate is too heavy for much hope of catching trout down here, there will be good sport for the trouble higher up among the moorland becks. Bring out the fishing-baskets, therefore, some small Stewart tacklings, and a canister of bait. Put up, too, a substantial sandwich and a flask; for the air among the hills is keen, and the mists are sometimes chilly. Wet and heavy the roads are, and there will be more rain yet, for the pools in the ruts are not clear. The slender larch on the edge of the wood has put on a greener kirtle in the night, and stands forward like a young bride glad amid her tears. If a glint of sunshine came to kiss her there, she would glitter with a hundred rain-jewels. The still, heavy air is aromatic with the scent of the pines. By the wayside the ripening oats are bending their graceful heads after the rain, like Danae, with their golden burden, while the warrior hosts of the barley beyond hold their spiky crests white and erect. The long, springing step natural on the heather shortens the road to the hills; and already a tempting burn or two have been crossed by the way. But nothing can be done without rods; and these have first to be called for at the shepherd’s. [Illustration] A quiet, far-off place it is, this shieling upon the moors, with the drone of bees about, and the bleating of sheep. The shepherd himself is away to the “big house” about some “hogs,” but his wife, a weather-grey woman of sixty, with rough hospitable hands and kindly eyes, says that “maybe Jeanie will tak’ a rod to the becks.” Jeanie, by her dark glance, is pleased with the liberty; and indeed this lithe, handsome girl of fifteen will not be the least pleasant of guides, with her hair like the raven’s wing, and on her clear features the thoughtful look of the hills. Here are the rods, straight ash saplings of convenient length, with thin brown lines. “Ye’ll come back and tak’ a cup o’ tea; and dinna stay up there if it rains,” says the goodwife, by way of parting. Jeanie is frank and interesting in speech, with a gentle breeding little to be expected in so lonely a place. She has the step of a deer, and seems to know every tuft of grass upon the hills. There is not so much heather in Galloway as in the West Highlands. A long grey bent takes its place, and on mossy ground the white tufts of the cotton grass appear.