When the morning sun filtered through the soft white curtain of fog, the beautiful, warm colours of a Highland moorland in autumn started to emerge in patches here and there. Algy leaned back comfortably against a wee ledge on one of the numerous rock outcrops, and watched the colours increase in intensity and begin to glow as the sun gradually lifted the fog from the hillsides.
The fog had decorated every tiny blade of grass and every delicate seed head with pearly drops of water which hung motionless in the unusually calm air. Algy was surprised to see that there were still a few wee heather flowers blooming here and there, although it was nearly October, and the bees were still buzzing busily, despite the excessive dampness which not only descended from above but oozed up squelchily from below to soak Algy’s tail feathers whenever he perched on the ground…
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.
The Adventures of Algy 