220 DEER-STALKING. 



The great mountain to the west looked magnificent as its 

 grey corries and cliffs were lighted up by the morning rays. 

 A noble pile of rock and heather is that mountain, and well 

 named Ben Mhor, or the Big Mountain not a triton amongst 

 minnows, but a triton amongst tritons. The golden eagle, to 

 add grandeur to the scene, was sweeping through the sky 

 high above me, and apparently eyeing my canine companion 

 with mingled curiosity and appetite. Once or twice in his 

 circles he came so near that I was half inclined to send a 

 rifle-ball at him, but as often as I stopped my walk with this 

 intention, the noble bird wheeled off again, and at last, re- 

 membering his breakfast hour was past, flew off in a straight 

 line at a great height towards the loch to the north of "us, 

 where he probably recollected having seen some dead or 

 sickly sheep during his flight homewards the evening before. 



I had several hours to spare before the time of meeting 

 Donald, so I diverged here and there, wherever I thought it 

 likely I should find deer, and then kept a northerly course 

 in order to look at some burns and grassy ground near the 

 loch, according to Malcolm's advice. The loch itself was 

 bright and beautiful, and the small islands on it looked like 

 emeralds set in silver. With my glass I could distinguish 

 eight or nine wild geese, as they ruffled the water in their 

 morning gambols, having probably just returned from grazing 

 on the short green grass that grew on different spots near the 

 water's edge. These grassy places were the sites of former 

 habitations, and were still marked by the line of crumbled 

 walls, now the constant resort of the few wild geese that 

 breed every year on the lonely and unvisited islands of the 

 loch. 



Below me there was a capital flat for deer, a long sloping 

 valley with a winding burn flowing through the middle, along 

 the banks of which were grassy spots where they constantly 

 fed. I searched this long and carefully with my glass, but 

 saw nothing excepting a few small companies of sheep which 

 were feeding in different flocks about the valley. So famous, 

 however, was this place as the resort of deer, that I took 

 good care not to show myself, and crawled carefully into a 

 hollow way, which, leading to the edge of the burn, would 

 enable me to walk almost unseen for a long distance, and I 

 thought that there might still be deer feeding in some bend 

 of the watercourse, where they had escaped my search. 

 Before I had walked many hundred yards down the course 



