172 HIGHLAND SPORT 



our delicacies were frost-bitten and useless, for no matter how 

 fresh-laid or how long it be boiled, a frosted egg will never set. 



We were preparing to start for the river when a small 

 boy came up to the front door to enquire if we would buy 

 six dozen plovers' eggs for five shillings. Questioned as to 

 where he got them, we learned that his eggs had also been 

 taken on the Sabbath, but, whereas ours had been collected 

 from high -lying fields, his, he said, were all quite good^ 

 having, he explained, been taken some distance away off 

 lower-lying lands — " Joost aroun' Craigellachie, sirs." Well, 

 we thought it odd that he should have found all good eggs, 

 while ours were all bad ones, so on expressing some doubt 

 on the subject, at the lad's desire we sent for a pail of water 

 to test them, when one and all promptly sank to the bottom, 

 which neither a frosted or addled egg will do. 



So we rejoiced in our bargain, and while Onions took 

 the eggs carefully out of the pail, dried them in a table napkin, 

 and placed them on the hall table, I went upstairs to get the 

 five shillings, for that was a larger sum than either of us 

 ever carried when fishing, and as the key of my travelling 

 bag, in which all cash was stowed away, had been mislaid, 

 I was comparatively a long time gone. However, the missing 

 article was found at last, so, hurrying downstairs money 

 in hand, payment was about to be made. As I passed the 

 hall table, on which the eggs were neatly laid in rows, a 

 single drop of water was standing out from near the small 

 end of almost every one of them. Out of curiosity I picked 

 up an egg and wiped off the globule, when, to my astonish- 

 ment, it at once began to reappear. Then in a second I 

 saw there was a pin-hole in one of the black spots of the 

 egg-shell, while a look at the boy convinced me that all 

 was not right, for as he met my eye he turned and fled as 

 fast as his legs would carry him ; but he escaped not entirely 

 scatheless, for I pursued, and deftly lodged the frosted egg 

 I had in my hand plump in his ear. 



