WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS 



who had long been a serjeant in some Highland regiment, 

 determined to free his neigbours fromthewitch;andhaving 

 loaded his gun with a double charge of gunpowder, put in, 

 instead of shot, a crooked sixpence and some silver but- 

 tons, which he had made booty of somewhere or other in 

 war time. He then, in the most foolhardy manner, laid him- 

 self down on the hill, just where we were then standing 

 when Donald told me the story, and, by the light of the 

 moon, watched the witch leave her habitation in the cairn 

 of stones. As soon as she was gone, he went to the very 

 placewhich she had just left,and there lay down in ambush 

 to await her return. "'Deed did he. Sir; for auld Duncan 

 was a mad-like deevil of a fellow, and was feared of no- 

 thing." Long he waited, and many a pull he took at his 

 bottle of smuggled whisky, in order to keep out the cold 

 of a September night. At last, when the first grey of the 

 morning began to appear, "Duncan hears a sough, and a 

 wild uncanny kind of skirl over his head, and he sees the 

 witch hersel, just coming like a muckle bird right towards 

 him, — 'deed. Sir, but he wished himsel at hame;and his fin- 

 gerwassostiffwithcold and fear that he could nascarce pull 

 the trigger. At last, and long, he did put out{AngIice, shoot 

 off) just as she was hovering over his head, and going to 

 licfht down on the cairn." Well, to cut the storv short, the 

 next morning Duncan was found lying on the cairn in a 

 deep slumber, half sleep and half swoon, with his gun burst, 

 his collar-bone nearly broken, and a fine large heron shot 

 through and through lying beside him, which heron, as 

 every one felt assured, was the cailleach herself. "She has 

 na done much harm since yon (concluded Donald); but her 



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