Grouse Shooting. 127 



was laid, while a cool claret cup was reposing to the brim in the ice-cold 

 spring that welled from the bowels of the hill at the back of the rock ; 

 and, as the huge two-handed vase passed from hand to hand, a sigh of 

 pleasure followed each deep drink, for the day was hot enough by this 

 time to satisfy even a glutton in Turkish baths. But exercise had given 

 us all an appetite ; and, while Bostock attended on us, Donald, Archy, 

 and company, twenty paces off, played a very fine knife and fork upon 

 a cold leg of mutton specially prepared for their refection — and it 

 is wonderful what a lot of cold meat half a dozen Highlanders can 

 stow away. The leg, by no means a small one, , hadn't a shred 

 left on it, while we did not do that badly, between sandwiches, cold 

 tongue, and a raised pie. Then we betook ourselves to a fragrant weed 

 and a chat over the sport. Our friends had had a good time, and, 

 thanks to a huge golden eagle which sailed slowly over the moor while 

 they wore shooting, the birds lay like stones ; and, though it came out 

 that tliey did not shoot quite so well as we did, tliey were able to head 

 us. And then Donald told us a story about " the aigles," and how he 

 had lain out three nights in succession to try and get a shot at them, their 

 eyries being in an inaccessible precipice high up on Ben Darroch, and 

 on the third night how he woke up suddenly, hearing the sound of pipes, 

 and by the moonlight he saw a dim shadowy funeral procession come 

 up Loch Darroch, and land at the little burial ground on the north end 

 of the loch ; and how the old laird, who had been ailing, died on the 

 twelfth month on the very day that he had seen the procession, &c., 

 &c. But as I found out that he had taken a muckle flask of one kind 

 of dew with him to keep off the effects of another, and he was rather 

 hazy in his dates, and the laird was at that time of the ripe age of 

 eighty-three, I discounted the legend, though I woiildn't have said as 

 much to Donald for a little, for his belief in it was perfect, and his 

 reputation as a taistchar among the neighbours was profound on the 

 strength of it. 



By this time our dogs had had a pretty good dose for a first day, 

 8>o we turned them over to one of the laddies, and each loosed a fresh 

 couple ; and, having smoked our weeds out and finished the cup, we 



