68 A HUNDRED YEARS 



however, informed by a very intelligent hrocair (fox- 

 hunter), who had been head fox-hunter for the whole 

 county of Sutherland, that when a marten started 

 killing sheep it was worse than a fox, and would kill 

 even three-year-old wedders. 



My uncle tells of a fox-hunter's pack which found the 

 scent of something that was supposed to be a fox on 

 the hillside above the Tigh Dige. The hounds ran the 

 track for three or four miles, the fox-hunter and his 

 gillies following as best they could, until the pack came 

 to a dead stop on the shore of Loch Tollie, just opposite 

 the small island where the awful tragedy connected with 

 our family in the days of the Macleods took place. 

 Thinking it was a fox which had crossed to the island, the 

 fox-hunter swam over, followed by his mongrel pack, 

 and what did they find there but a huge wild-cat, still 

 dripping wet, and its six kittens, the latter hard at 

 work eating a freshly killed grouse which their mother 

 had brought them. They needed no more grouse after 

 that interview ! What a deal of thought pussy must 

 have given to the matter before she made up her mind 

 that the only chance of saving her kittens from the 

 detested fox-hunter was to keep on swimming across 

 Loch Tollie, until they were old enough to leave the 

 island. 



My uncle used also to mention the case of a ganger 

 searching for a sack of malt or the copper worm of a 

 still he had heard was hidden in the Castle Leod Raven 

 Rock above StrathpefTer. He poked his stick into a 

 wild-cat's nest among her kittens, and in a second, unable 

 to escape past him, she flew at him, so that he missed 



