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Updated: June 14, 2025
"Did you not say some one was dead?" said Catharine, with a frightful uncertainty of utterance, as if her organs of speech and hearing served her but imperfectly. "Dead, hinny! Ay ay, dead eneugh; ye'll no hae him to gloom at ony mair." "Dead!" repeated Catharine, still with the same uncertainty of voice and manner. "Dead slain and by Highlanders?" "I'se warrant by Highlanders, the lawless loons.
Was it any wonder that they were happy, and that joyful shouts and wild peals of laughter came ringing down from the sky to tell us poor earthbound men and women that somewhere up in the blue, beyond the reach of our short-sighted eyes, the loons were hurrying home?
The muffled sounds of the feet of the various companies as they thundered past upon the snow, roused the old wives dozing over their knitting by their fires of spent oak-bark; and according to her temper would be the remark with which each startled dame turned again to her former busy quiescence: "Some mischeef o' the loons!" "Some ploy o' the laddies!"
This interesting event spread cheerfulness through our residence and formed a topic of conversation for the rest of the day. On the 9th the approach of spring was still more agreeably confirmed by the appearance of a merganser and two gulls, and some loons or arctic divers, at the rapid.
Parry's Groundsquirrel was found at nearly all points, including the large islands. The Laplongspur swarmed everywhere; their loud "chee chups" were the first sounds to greet us each time we neared the land. And out over all the lake were Loons, Loons, Loons.
Occasionally the voyagers would be startled by the splash of a gigantic catfish as it leaped out of the water, and the loons driven southward by the approaching winter, filled the air with their melancholy cries. Shortly after midnight a gale sprang up which quickly churned the water into heavy waves and before daylight a regular hurricane was blowing.
There were deer and bear in the depths of the green ocean, and an occasional wolverine. Sometimes at night a red fox would circle about the clearing and bark querulously, the cry contrasting oddly with the notes of whippoorwills and the calls of loons.
"As sune as the keel o' the coble touches the sand, deil a bit mair will the lazy fisher loons work, but the wives maun kilt their coats, and wade into the surf to tak the fish ashore. And then the man casts aff the wat and puts on the dry, and sits down wi' his pipe and his gill-stoup ahint the ingle, like ony auld houdie, and neer a turn will he do till the coble's afloat again!
"Perhaps we'll condemn 'em and puncture 'em," answered the King. "Well," said she, still eyeing the captives, "I'm not sure they'll puncture. Let's try it, and see." One of the Loons ran to the forest's edge and quickly returned with a long, sharp thorn. He glanced at the King, who nodded his head in assent, and then he rushed forward and stuck the thorn into the leg of the Scarecrow.
"As sune as the keel o' the coble touches the sand, deil a bit mair will the lazy fisher loons work, but the wives maun kilt their coats, and wade into the surf to tak the fish ashore. And then the man casts aff the wat and puts on the dry, and sits down wi' his pipe and his gill-stoup ahint the ingle, like ony auld houdie, and neer a turn will he do till the coble's afloat again!
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