CHAPTER THREE THE GROUSE 



times of difficulty or disappointment. When the stag had 

 joined the hinds, and some ceremonies of recognition had 

 been gone through, they all went quietly and steadily away, 

 till we lost sight of them over the shoulder of the next hill. 

 "They'll no stop till they get to Alt-na-car," said Donald, 

 naming a winding rushy burn at some distance off; "Alt- 

 na-car" meaning the "Burn of many turns," as far as my 

 knowledge of Gaelic goes. And there we were constrained 

 to leave them and continue our ptarmigan-shooting, which 

 we did with but little success and less spirit. Soon after- 

 wards a magnificent eagle suddenly rose almost at our 

 feet, as we came to the edge of a precipice, on a shelf of 

 which, near the summit, he had been resting. Bang went 

 one barrel at him, at a distance of twenty yards. The small 

 shot struck him severely, and, dropping his legs, he rose 

 into the air, darting upwards nearly perpendicularly, a 

 perfect cloud of feathers coming out of him. He then came 

 wheeling in a stupefied manner back over our heads. We 

 both of us fired together at him and down he fell with one 

 wing broken, and hit all over with our small shot. He 

 struggled hard to keep up with the other wing, but could 

 not do so, and came heavily to the ground within a yard of 

 the edge of the precipice. He fell over on his back at first, 

 and then rising up on his feet, looked round with an air of 

 reproachful defiance. The blood was dropping slowly out 

 of his beak, when Donald foolishly ran to secure him, in- 

 stead of leaving him to die where he was; in consequence 

 of his doing so, the eagle fluttered back a few steps, still, 

 however, keeping his face to the foe. But, coming to the 

 edge of the precipice, he fell backwards over it, and we 

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