GOLDEN EAGLE, 95 



some thinking it a bunch of heather put up with the 

 view of deceiving them, others alleging that Uilleam 

 beg had actually shot an eagle. The hitter, as you are 

 aware, " good reader," were right, and my uncle was 

 as proud as myself, for I had proved a hopeful scholar, 

 and saved him, perhaps, half a score of lambkins. This 

 eagle, although very beautiful, was very small, measur- 

 ing only five feet six inches from tip to tip ; but as I 

 was not then a naturalist, the bird was allowed to rot 

 on the dunghill, without having its quills counted or 

 its bill gauged. As to the hen that had been in such 

 peril, first from the talons of an eagle, and then from 

 the shot of a raw recruit, it still continued useful in its 

 way, reared a brood of chickens, and was finally eaten. 

 Many years after, having ascended to the summit of 

 one of the lofty mountains in the Forest of Harris, in 

 search of plants (for I had by this time become a bo- 

 tanist), I stood to admire the glorious scene that pre- 

 sented itself, and enjoy the most intense of all delights 

 — that of communion in the wilderness with the God 

 of the Universe. I was on a narrow ridge of rock, co- 

 vered with the Silene acaulis, whose lovely pink blos- 

 soms were strewn around ; on one side was a rocky 

 slope, the resort of the ptarmigan ; on the other a rug- 

 ged precipice, in the crevices of which had sprung up 

 luxuriant tufts of Rhodiola rosea. Before me, in the 

 west, was the craggy island of Scarp ; toward the south 

 stretched the rugged coast-line of Harris, margined on 

 the headlands with a line of white foam; and, away to 

 the dim horizon, spread out the vast expanse of the 

 Atlantic Ocean, with the lonely isles of St Kilda on its 

 extreme verge. The sun, descending in the clear sky, 



