“Thae peewits an’ a’ the plovers are a’ the same. If the win’s gaun to leap out of the east intae the sooth-wast, or slide quickly from the north intae the wast, they’ll gang on wheelin’ an’ wailin’ like yon for an hour or mair, an’ that afore there’s the least sign o’ a change. An’ as for the craws ... weel, if ye had been lookin’ up a wee whilie ago ye’d ’a seen a baker’s dozen go by, slantin’ on the edge o’ the win’, like boats before a stiff breeze. Aye, an’ see there! ... there’s a wheen mair comin’ up overhead.” I glanced skyward, and saw some eight or ten rooks flying high and evidently making for the mountain-range about two miles away to our left. “D’ye see that ... thae falling birds?” “Yes,” I answered, noticing a singular occasional fall in the general steady flight, as though the suddenly wheeling bird had been shot: “and what o’ that, John?” “It’s just this: when ye see craws flyin’ steady like that an’ then yince in a while drapping oot like yon, ye may tak’ it as meanin’ there’s heavy rain no that great way aff: onyways, when ye see the like when thae black deils are fleein’ straight for the hills, ye maun feel sure frae the double sign that ye’ll hae a good chance o’ being drookit afore twa-three hours.” One question led to another, and I heard much crow and corbie lore from John Logan, some of it already familiar to me and some new to me or vaguely half-known--as the legend that the corbies or ravens, and with them all the crow-kind, were originally white, but at the time of the Deluge were turned sooty-black because the head of the clan, when sent out by Noah from the Ark, did not return, but stayed to feed on the bodies of the drowned. “So the blackness of death was put on them, as my old mother has it in her own Gaelic.” “Your old mother, John?” I queried surprisedly: “I did not know you had any one at your croft.” “Aye, but I have that, though she’s a poor frail auld body an’ never gangs further frae the hoose than the byre an’ the hen-yaird. If ye want to hear more aboot thae birds an’ the auld stories forenenst them, she’d mak’ you welcome, an’ we’d be glad an’ prood to offer ye tea: an’ I’ll just tell ye this, that ye’ll gie her muckle pleasure if ye’ll hae a crack wi’ her in the Gaelic, an’ let her tell her auld tales in’t. She’s Hielan’, ye ken: tho’ my faither was oot o’ Forfar, Glen Isla way. She’s never got hold o’ the English yet varra weel, an’ to my sorrow I’ve never learnt the auld tongue, takin’ after my faither in that, dour lowland body as he was. I ken enough to follow her sangs, an’ a few words forbye, just enough to gie us a change as ye micht say.”