Just like most “mornings after”, the day following the Scottish Independence Referendum dawned grey and dreich. There was scarcely a breath of wind on the moor, nor any sign of sun in the sky, and Algy was feeling decidedly limp. He draped himself over the remains of a blasted rowan tree, and gazed for some time at the calm water of the lochan. As he perched there in the stillness, watching nothing very much happening at all, he remembered a poem, which he dedicates to all his Scottish friends who are feeling disappointed and depressed today:

          Hold fast to dreams
          For if dreams die
          Life is a broken-winged bird
          That cannot fly.

          Hold fast to dreams
          For when dreams go
          Life is a barren field
          Frozen with snow.

[Algy is quoting the poem Dreams by the 20th century American poet Langston Hughes.]

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