THE MORNING START 207 



So you grasp a staff in the meantime, and the sporting 

 procession sebranle^ the old keeper marching modestly 

 half a foot or so in rear of your right flank, "cracking" 

 cheerily of old times and memorable days, talking san- 

 guinely of present prospects, although another hour 

 must bring his promises to the test. Four summers 

 now since there has been a touch of disease or a tainted 

 feather in the place, and in the seven-and-twenty 

 years he has been here he never recollects such a 

 breeding season nor so few barren birds. Behind you 

 and your friend come a couple and a half of gillies, 

 one of them retained permanently on the strength of 

 the sporting establishment, the others amphibious jacks- 

 of-all-trades, recruited for the season. Members of 

 the Ross-shire militia ; tillers on an occasion of the 

 barren acres that surround the paternal croft ; every 

 season ploughing the heaving sea with the herring 

 fleet ; now, as we perceive, taking to the hill-side as to 

 the manner born and so they have been. Poachers 

 on temptation very likely, although, to do them justice, 

 the canny Donalds and Duncans prefer getting their 

 living and their little luxuries by honest work. Yet 

 more than once have one or the other tumbled over 

 the lordly red deer with half a handful of swan-shot, 

 in the grey light of the dawn or the gloaming, as the 

 monarch of the wilds came to seek his tithes in the 

 scanty harvest of the crofter. Donald, Dougald, and 

 Duncan each lead a couple of straining setters in leash, 

 sustaining up hill and down dale without the slightest 

 effort an animated Gaelic conversation in guttural 



