IN THE HIGHLANDS 145 



a few days before Grant and the boy got there, a passing 

 herd of cattle belonging to the laird, being bothered 

 with the heat and the flies, had pushed open the door 

 of the bothy and taken refuge in it, which was not 

 difficult, as the door was barely hanging by one hinge. 

 This was all very well until the beasts began to get 

 hungry and tried to get out, but the door which they 

 pushed inwards so easily, refused to be pushed outwards, 

 and if by the greatest luck a shepherd had not passed 

 that way and looked in, the whole lot of cattle would 

 have been starved to death. The smell made the house 

 almost unbearable, and had it not been a wet night 

 we should rather have laid ourselves down a la belle 

 etoile. Time, however, cures many things, and it at 

 last cured Carn Mor of being " cowy." 



The fire, which consisted of heather sticks and bog- 

 fir, was at one end of the bothy against the gable, and 

 I lay on the earthen floor on a bed of heather, with a 

 blanket or two on me, the man and the boy having to do 

 likewise on the opposite side. I was what would be 

 called at the present day very badly armed. All I had 

 were my little rifle, given me by my mother when I was 

 about eleven years old, which required at least two 

 sights to be raised if the animal was one hundred and 

 fifty yards away, and an old, heavy, German, double- 

 barrelled, muzzle-loading rifle lent me by my brother, 

 and a very small, inferior telescope. The second day 

 I was in luck, and got two stags with a right and left. 

 I was very pleased with myself, and, not forgetting that 

 I had got the shooting at a fairly low rent, I thought it 



my duty to make the eccentric old gentleman a present 



10 



