vowed vengeance; and, merely giving us our route, returned for a spade to dig a place of hiding near enough the carcass to enable him to have a shot if the eagles should return. We held on our way, and the greater part of the day without any luck to cheer us, my resolution "not to be beat" a good deal strengthened by the occasional grumbling of Donald. Towards afternoon, when we had tired ourselves with looking at every corrie in that side of the hill with our glasses, at length, in crossing a bare and boggy piece of ground, Donald suddenly stopped, with a Gaelic exclamation, and pointed-and there to be sure was a full fresh foot-print, the largest mark of a deer either of us had ever seen. There was no more grumbling. Both of us were instantly as much on the alert as when we started on our adventure. We traced the track as long as the ground would allow. Where we lost it, it seemed to point down the little burn which soon lost itself to our view in a gorge of bare rocks. We proceeded now very cautiously, and taking up our station on a concealed ledge of one of the rocks, began to search the valley below with our telescopes. It was a large flat, strewed with huge slabs of stone, and surrounded on all sides but one with dark damp rocks. At the farther end were two black lochs, connected by a sluggish stream;-beside the larger loch, a bit of coarse grass and rushes, where we could distinguish a brood of wild ducks swimming in and out. It was difficult ground to see a deer, if lying; and I had almost given up seeking, when Donald's glass became motionless, and he gave a sort of grunt as he hitched on his belly, without taking the glass from his eye. "Ugh! I'm thinking yon's him, sir: I'm seeing his horns." I was at first incredulous. What he showed me close to the long grass I have mentioned, looked for all the world like some withered sticks; but the doubt was short. While we gazed, he rose and commenced feeding; and at last I saw the great hart of Benmore! He was a long way off, perhaps a mile and a half, but in excellent ground for getting at him. Our plan was soon made. I was to stalk him with the rifle, while Donald, with my gun and Bran, was to get round, out of sight, to the pass by which the deer was likely to leave the valley. My task was apparently very easy. After getting down behind the rock, I had scarcely to stoop my head, but to walk up within shot, so favourable was the ground and the wind. I walked cautiously, however, and slow, to give Donald time to reach the pass. I was now within three hundred yards of him, when, as I leant against a slab of stone, all hid below my eyes, I saw him give a sudden start, stop feeding, and look round suspiciously. What a noble beast! what a stretch of antler! with a mane like a lion! He stood for a minute or two, snuffing every breath. I could not guess the cause of his alarm; it was not myself; the light wind blew fair down from him upon me. I knew Donald would give him no inkling of his whereabouts. He presently began to move, and came at a slow trot directly towards me. My pulse beat high. Another hundred yards forward, and he is mine! But it was not so to be. He took the top of a steep bank which commanded my position, and he saw me in an instant, and was off, at the speed of twenty miles an hour, to a pass wide from that where Donald was hid. While clattering up the hill,

VOL. LXXVII. NO. CLIII.

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hill, scattering the loose stones behind him, two other stags joined him, who had evidently been put up by Donald, and had given the alarm to my quarry. It was then that his great size was conspicuous. I could see with my glass they were full-grown stags, and with good heads, but they looked like fallow-deer as they followed him up the crag. I sat down, disappointed for the moment; and Donald soon joined me, much crestfallen, and cursing the stag in a curious variety of Gaelic oaths. Still it was something to have seen "the muckle stag," and nil desperandum was my motto. We had a long and weary walk to Malcolm's shealing; and I was glad to get to my heather bed, after arranging that I should Occupy the hut Malcolm had prepared near the dead sheep next morning.

• Wednesday.-We were up an hour before daylight-and in a very dark morning, I sallied out with Malcolm to take my station for a shot at the eagles. Many a stumble and slip I made during our walk, but at last I was left alone fairly ensconced, and hidden in the hut, which gave me hardly room to stand, sit, or lie. My position was not very comfortable, and the air was nipping cold just before the break of day. It was still scarcely grey dawn when a bird, with a slow, flapping flight, passed the opening of my hut, and lighted out of sight, but near, for I heard him strike the ground; and my heart beat faster. What was my disappointment when his low crowing croak announced the raven! and presently he came in sight, hopping and walking suspiciously round the sheep, till, supposing the coast clear, and little wotting of the doublebarrel, he hopped upon the carcase, and began with his square cutand-thrust beak to dig at the meat. Another raven soon joined him, and then two more, who, after a kind of parley, quite intelligible, though in an unknown tongue, were admitted to their share of the banquet. I was watching their voracious meal with some interest, when suddenly they set up a croak of alarm, stopped feeding, and all turned their knowing-looking eyes in one direction. At that moment I heard a sharp scream, but very distant. The black party heard it too, and instantly darted off, alighting again at a little distance. Next moment, a rushing noise, and a large body passed close to me; and the monarch of the clouds lighted at once on the sheep, with his broad breast not fifteen yards from me. He quietly folded up his wings, and, throwing back his magnificent head, looked round at the ravens, as if wondering at their impudence in approaching his breakfast-table. They kept a respectful silence, and hopped a little farther off. The royal bird then turned his head in my direction, attracted by the change of the ground which he had just noticed in the dim morning light. His bright eye that instant caught mine as it glanced along the barrel. He rose; as he rose I drew the trigger, and he fell quite dead half a dozen yards from the sheep. I followed Malcolm's directions, who had predicted that one eagle would be followed by a second, and remained quiet, in hopes that his mate was not within hearing of my shot. The morning was brightening, and I had not waited many minutes when I saw the other eagle skimming low over the brow of the hill towards me. She did not light at once. Her eye caught the change in the ground or the dead body of

her

her mate, and she wheeled up into the air. I thought her lost to me, when presently I heard her wings brush close over my head, and then she went wheeling round and round above the dead bird, and turning her head downwards to make out what had happened. At times she stooped so low, I saw the sparkle of her eye and heard her low complaining cry. I watched the time when she turned up her wing towards me, and fired, and dropped her actually on the body of the other. I now rushed out. The last bird immediately rose to her feet, and stood gazing at me with a reproachful, half-threatening look. She would have done battle, but death was busy with her, and, as I was loading in haste, she reeled and fell perfectly dead. Eager as I had been to do the deed, I could not look on the royal birds without a pang. But such regrets were now too late. Passing over the shepherd's rejoicing, and my incredible breakfast, we must get forward in our own great adventure. Our line of march to-day was over ground so high that we came repeatedly in the midst of ptarmigan. On the very summit, Bran had a rencontre with an old mountain fox, toothless, yet very fat, whom he made to bite the dust. We struck at one place the tracks of the three deer, but of themselves we saw nothing. We kept exploring corrie after corrie till night fell; and as it was in vain to think of returning to the shealing, which yet was the nearest roof, we were content to find a sort of niche in the rock, tolerably screened from all winds; and having almost filled it with long heather, flower up, we wrapped our plaids round us, and slept pretty comfortably.

'Thursday.-A dip in the burn below our bivouac renovated me. did not observe that Donald followed my example in that; but he joined me in a hearty attack on the viands that still remained in our bag; and we started with renewed courage. About mid-day we came on a shealing beside a long narrow loch, fringed with beautiful weeping-birches, and there we found means to cook some grouse I had shot to supply our exhausted larder. The shepherd, who had "no Sassenach," cheered us by his report of "the deer" being lately seen, and describing his usual haunts. Donald was plainly getting disgusted and home-sick. For myself, I looked upon it as my fate that I must have that hart; so on we trudged. Repeatedly, that afternoon, we came on the fresh tracks of our chace, but again he remained invisible. As it got dark, the weather suddenly changed, and I was glad enough to let Donald seek for the bearings of a "whisky bothie" which he had heard of at our last stop. While he was seeking for it, the rain began to fall heavily, and through the darkness we were just able to distinguish a dark object, which turned out to be a horse. "The lads with the still will no be far off," said Donald. And so it turned out. But the rain had increased the darkness so much, that we should have searched in vain if I had not distinguished at intervals, between the pelting of the rain and the heavy rushing of a black burn that ran beside us, what appeared to me to be the shrill treble of a fiddle. I could scarcely believe my ears. But when I told my ideas to Donald, whose ears were less acute, he jumped with joy. "It's all right enough; just follow the sound; it's that drunken deevil, Sandy Ross; ye'll never haud a fiddle frae him, nor him frae a whisky

G 2

still."

still." It was clear the sound came from across the black stream, and it looked formidable in the dark. However, there was no remedy. So grasping each the other's collar, and holding the guns high over head, we dashed in, and staggered through in safety, though the water was up to my waist, running like a mill-race, and the bottom was of round slippery stones. Scrambling up the bank, and following the merry sound, we came to what seemed a mere hole in the bank, from which it proceeded. The hole was partially closed by a door woven of heather; and, looking through it, we saw a sight worthy of Teniers. On a barrel in the midst of the apartment-half hut, half cavern-stood aloft, fiddling with all his might, the identical Sandy Ross, while round him danced three unkempt savages; and another figure was stooping, employed over a fire in the corner, where the whisky-pot was in full operation. The fire, and a sliver or two of lighted bog-fir, gave light enough to see the whole, for the place was not above ten feet square. We made our approaches with becoming caution, and were, it is needless to say, hospitably received; for who ever heard of Highland smugglers refusing a welcome to sportsmen? We got rest, food, and fire-all that we required and something more; for long after I had betaken me to the dry heather in the corner, I had disturbed visions of strange orgies in the bothy, and of my sober Donald exhibiting curious antics on the top of a tub. These were perhaps productions of a disturbed brain; but there is no doubt that when daylight awoke me, the smugglers and Donald were all quiet and asleep, far past my efforts to rouse them, with the exception of one who was still able to tend the fire under the large black pot.

'Friday. From the state in which my trusty companion was, with his head in a heap of ashes, I saw it would serve no purpose if I were able to awake him. He could be good for nothing all day. I therefore secured some breakfast and provisions for the day (part of them oatcake, which I baked for myself), tied up Bran to wait Donald's restoration, and departed with my rifle alone. The morning was bright and beautiful, the mountain-streams overflowing with last night's rain. I was now thrown on my own resources, and my own knowledge of the country, which, to say the truth, was far from minute or exact. "Benna-skiach" was my object to-day, and the corries which lay beyond it, where at this season the large harts were said to resort. My way at first was dreary enough, over a long slope of boggy ground, enlivened, however, by a few traces of deer having crossed, though none of my "chace." I at length passed the slope, and soon topped the ridge, and was repaid for my labour by a view so beautiful, I sat down to gaze, and I must even now present it to you, though anxious to get forward. Looking down into the valley before me, the foreground was a confusion of rocks of most fantastic shape, shelving rapidly to the edge of a small blue lake, the opposite shore of which was a beach of white pebbles, and beyond, a stretch of the greenest pasture, dotted with dropping whitestemmed birches. This little level was hemmed in on all sides by mountains, ridge above ridge, first closely covered with purple heath, then more green and broken by ravines, and ending in sharp serrated

peaks

85

peaks tipped with snow. Nothing moved within range of my vision, and nothing was to be seen that bespoke life but a solitary heron standing on one leg in the shallow water at the upper end of the lake. From hence I took in a good range, but could see no deer. While I lay above the lake, the day suddenly changed, and heavy wreaths of mist came down the mountain-sides in rapid succession. They reached me soon, and I was enclosed in an atmosphere through which I could not see twenty yards. It was very cold too, and I was obliged to move, though scarcely well knowing whither. I followed the course of the lake, and afterwards of the stream which flowed from it, for some time. Now and then a grouse would rise close to me, and, flying a few yards, light again on a hillock, crowing and croaking at the intruder. The heron, in the darkness, came flapping his great wings close past me; I almost fancied I could feel their air. Nothing could be done in such weather, and I was not sure I might not be going away from my object. It was getting late too, and I made up my mind that my most prudent plan was to arrange a bivouac before it became quite dark. My wallet was empty, except a few crumbs, the remains of my morning's baking. It was necessary to provide food; and just as the necessity occurred to me, I heard through the mist the call of a cock grouse as he lighted close to me. I contrived to get his head between me and the sky as he was strutting and croaking on a hillock close at hand; and aiming at where his body ought to be, I fired my rifle. On going up to the place, I found I had not only killed him, but also his mate, whom I had not It was a commencement of good luck. Sitting down, I speedily skinned my birds, and took them down to the burn to wash them before cooking. In crossing a sandy spot beside the burn, I came upon--could I believe my eyes?" the Track." Like Robinson Crusoe in the same circumstances, I started back; but was speedily at work taking my informations. There were prints enough to show the hart had crossed at a walk leisurely. It must have been lately, for it was since the burn had returned to its natural size, after the last night's flood. But nothing could be done till morning, so I set about my cooking; and having after some time succeeded in lighting a fire, while my grouse were slowly broiling, I pulled a quantity of heather, which I spread in a corner a little protected by an overhanging rock: I spread my plaid upon it, and over the plaid built another layer of heather. My supper ended, which was not epicurean, I crawled into my nest under my plaid, and was soon Visions of sound asleep. I cannot say my slumbers were unbroken. the great stag thundering up the hills with preternatural speed, and noises like cannon (which I have since learnt to attribute to their true cause- -the splitting of fragments of rock under a sudden change from wet to sharp frost), and above all, the constant recurrence of weary struggles through fields of snow and ice-kept me restless, and at length awoke me to the consciousness of a brilliant skylight and keen frost--a change that rejoiced me in spite of the cold.

seen.

Saturday.-Need I say my first object was to go down and examine the track anew. There was no mistake. It was impossible to doubt that "the muckle hart of Benmore" had actually walked through that

burn