The West Highland spring was not at its best this year. It looked as though the dense mist would not lift all day, so Algy decided that the only thing to do was to settle down to some serious reading. He tucked himself tight in under a sheltering rock, as the sheep do in bad weather, and hoped that his book wouldn’t get too damp. In the distance he could hear a ship calling in the foggy Sound. Algy wasn’t lost, but everything else was, so he was reminded of Carl Sandburg’s poem:

          Desolate and lone
          All night long on the lake
          Where fog trails and mist creeps,
          The whistle of a boat
          Calls and cries unendingly,
          Like some lost child
          In tears and trouble
          Hunting the harbor’s breast
          And the harbor’s eyes.