DEER -DRIVING IX MULL. 49 



could either have smelt, seen, or heard us, and we 

 could only account for the mishap by that caprice 

 common to all living creatures as well as deer. 

 When groping our way home, we consoled our- 

 selves by the hope that we should certainly find 

 these same harts next day in Scalastal wood. 



When the wind is north, the south passes of 

 course guard the extensive oak copse of Scalastal. 

 They are four in number, nearly in line. As the 

 wood hangs on a hillside, the passes rise one 

 above the other, and were known to us as the high 

 pass, the middle pass, the low pass, and the lowest 

 pass. Attended by the grieve, to point out the 

 ground, we scaled the hill, directing the shepherds 

 to allow us twenty minutes law, before throwing 

 the dogs into the low side copsewood flanked by 

 the burn. I preferred the middle pass (medio tut 

 c&c.), iny eldest son the high one (excelsior), his 

 brother the highest he could get ! and the lowest 

 was left to itself and the deer. 



Both my sons had taken their ground, but the 



overseer was in the act of pointing out mine, when 



the lugubrious tones of the Ugly Buck swelled out 



in the wood close beneath. In an instant a hart 



D 



