68 THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 



veered, then down the glen he sped — a sickly lamb had caught 

 his eye ; but the barking of the shepherd's faithful collie, and 

 the burly, plaided figure of the shepherd himself striding round 

 a corrie, warned him that stronger powers than his stretched out 

 protection there. He owned the might but not the right, and 

 swept up the glen, over the mountain's brow, and sailing down 

 the other slope again, he stopped, but only for a second, then 

 on again. Suddenly, another momentary pause ; but this time 

 his meditated purpose was turned into action, as the powder's 

 flash at the touch of fire, putting in practice the rueful soliloquy 

 of Macbeth at the escape of Macduff, that 



" The flighty purpose never is o'ertook 

 Unless the deed go with it ;" 



for down like a living thunderbolt again he sped, but this time 

 clutched his prey — a ptarmigan — crushing its breast and squeez- 

 ing it to death. With a short " cluck" of triumph he again 

 mounted his serial car and homeward bent his flight ; but as 

 if to prove that there is opposition in everything, even in death, 

 he had not flown far when, sweeping up a deep ravine, a pair 

 of well-armed active peregrine falcons barred his way, disputing 

 his royal authority to plunder on territory they deemed their 

 own. The only sign he gave of disputed right was clutching 

 the dead ptarmigan still harder with his talons, redoubling his 

 speed in grim defiance, as he had still one of his arms free and 

 bare. After screeching and screaming, wheeling, darting, and 

 soaring — above, below, around — on their still more rapid pinions, 

 they annoyed him much more than the loquacious ravens. Once 

 or twice he seemed on the point of relinquishing his prey and 

 defending himself in earnest, but they seemed to be aware of 

 the unequal strife if it came to close quarters, and, satisfied at 

 having shown the reputed king of birds their marked superi- 

 ority in serial evolutions, they triumphantly withdrew, after 

 chasing him away, and settled on their own grim ledge of rock. 

 On their quitting him, he, too, with a shrill scream of kindred 

 satisfaction, sped on, and after cleaving through space for about 

 fifty miles, was back beside his nest in less than twenty minutes. 

 But the flight of birds, like the rapid quivering of humming 

 bird or bee, cannot be computed by miles. They speed so fast 

 and far, time alone, not distance, is all that we can say. When 

 near home he met his mate with a sickly lamb in her talons, 

 and as they met, the " deil micht hae kent they had business in 

 hand," the glen resounded so loud with their lierce triumphant 



