208 AUGUST ON THE MOORS 



undertone. Yet by this time, so steep is the hill-face, 

 that the panniers containing your larder and cellar are 

 slipping back on the pony's cat-like crupper, and the 

 boy at his head has left that accomplished mountaineer 

 to zigzag upwards over the slippery heather-roots after 

 his own way and devices. 



Tantalising work, having to plod forward toward 

 the point where you have arranged to begin the beat, 

 that you may give the dogs what wind there is of their 

 quarry. Yet you cannot afford to throw away a chance 

 in that way, for, judging by the signs of the weather, 

 there is all the promise of a sweltering day. " 'Deed, 

 sir," says the keeper, " you'll better be settling to take 

 your lunch by the well at Crohallion. We'll all of us 

 be wanting the best of wa-a-te-r-r by that time, I'm 

 thinking." Meantime, the merry crow of each out- 

 lying grouse-cock, as he dashes away upon the wing, 

 rings like a challenge in your ears, long after he has 

 carried himself and his note over the hill shoulder ; 

 and now and again you pause with irresolute foot 

 uplifted in the air, as the young brood that have lain 

 like stones flash up panic-driven round your boots, to 

 stream through the air like scattering fireworks. 



I^uckily you are gifted with a soul for scenery, and, 

 with all your impatience, fill pleasantly enough the 

 pauses that the labouring ascent makes matter of simple 

 necessity. Although you have to climb even higher 

 yet, what a wealth of broken landscape lies beneath the 

 airy Pisgah you have reached already. The shooting- 

 lodge diminished to the size of one of the boxes you 



