Seven o’clock, and a glorious morning! The sun is shining brightly on the coral-clustered rowan-tree outside, and the sky already is dazzling blue. A gentle air, too, just stirs the muslin curtain of the window left open overnight. With it comes in the scent of honey and the hum of bees at work in the garden below. No morning is this for laziness and a late breakfast. The impulse to be abroad is born of the sunshine; and a few minutes serve, after a hurried toilet, to snatch a towel, bound down stairs, and go tramping across the heather to the well-known pool.
A magnificent day indeed it promises to be. The wreathing night-mists have already risen from the Bens, and the loch below gleams like melted sapphire round sylvan island and far-set promontory. Everywhere the mountains are clad in purple, and from the moor-bloom spreading its springy carpet underfoot rises a fragrance that fills air and heart alike with delight. And the river pool--never was found more delightful bathing-place. Hidden deep between overhanging banks of heather in flower, with a clean brown ledge of rock to dive from, the depth of dark, clear water, like amber wine, sparkles with foam-bells, and the waterfall tosses from the rock above great showers of silver spray. No more invigorating plunge could be had. For a moment, as he breasts the brown depths, the bather feels something of the salmon’s exultant pride; and a dip like that sets one off high-hearted for the day.
Breakfast is a delight after such an appetiser; and fresh eggs and thin oatcakes, creamy porridge, golden marmalade, and all the wealth of Highland fare, disappear with startling despatch. There is no time to be wasted either, for Archie was to have the boat ready at half-past nine, and there is a Highland half-mile of road between the house and the loch. Archie would by no means scruple about expressing his candid, and perhaps not very complimentary, opinion if the party chanced to be late; and there is a kind of unwritten law in the house that the old servant is to be humoured as much as possible. So already the ladies are concerning themselves with the making and packing of sandwiches, the due stowage of cold provender, jellies, fruit, milk, _et cetera_, and the apportioning to each his load. For the luncheon is to be, _bonâ fide_, a true Robinson Crusoe affair, no servants interfering; and each man must make himself useful.