FAREWELL TO CUAGH OIR Once more the golden light of a sunny spring day was shining on the sapphire loch at the bottom, and overflowing at the rim of the Cuagh Oir.

But for all its flowing gold, there was grief in the Glen--grief deep and silent, like the quiet waters of the little loch.

It was seen in the grave faces of the men who gathered at the "smiddy." It was heard in the cadence of the voices of the women as they gathered to "kalie" (Ceilidh) in the little cottages that fringed the loch's side, or dotted the heather-clad slopes.

It even checked the boisterous play of the bairns as they came in from school.

It lay like a cloud on the Cuagh, and heavy on the hearts that made up the little hill-girt community of one hundred souls, or more.
And the grief was this, that on the "morrow's morn" Mary Robertson's son was departing from the Glen "neffer to return for effermore," as Donald of the House farm put it, with a face gloomy as the loch on a dark winter's day.
"A leaving" was ever an occasion of wailing to the Glen, and many a leaving had the Glen known during the last fifty years.