A Daughter of Heth by William Black

LOCHFYNE.

"It is Eden: it is the Garden of the Lord! " said the Minister; and the sad and sunken eyes that had grown dim over many books -- that had grown weary, too, perhaps, with the bleakness of the upland moor -- looked abroad over one of the fairest scenes in the world, and drank in the quiet and the dear sunshine of it. Far in front of him stretched the pale-blue plain of Lochfyne, that was as still, and smooth, and motionless as the pale-blue sky above. From this point of the Knapdale coast away up to the fork of Loch Gilp there was not a ripple on the calm surface; but over at the opposite shore a slight breeze was bearing up from the south, and there the blue of the water was intense and almost dark. Beyond this azure plain lay the brown and ruddy colours of the Cowal hills -- soft and smooth in the mist of the heat; while along them moved great dashes of shadow thrown by the slowly-passing clouds above. Through the stillness of the sunshine they heard the soft whistle of the curlew; they saw the solan flap his heavy white wings far down towards Arran; they watched the solitary heron standing among the brown weeds out at the point of the shore -- while now and again a sea-trout would leap a foot into the air, and fall with a splash again into the clear water. Then all around them, where they sat on the pebbly beach, was the drowsy warmth of the sun -- glittering sharply on the birch and hazel bushes by the road -- gleaming more softly on the great grey boulders -- and dwelling mistily on the bushes, and heather, and rocks of the hill-side. And all this was so still that it scarcely seemed to be of this world; the murmur of a stream coming down through the trees -- trickling coolly and unseen beneath the tall ferns -- had a far and mournful sound, like the sound of distant music in a dream.