PREPARATION FOR THE MOUNTAINS. 65 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Nineteenth of August Preparations for the mountains Order of march 

 A cook broiled to death Interruption of a funeral Drowned shepherd 

 Grouse shooting Evening compotation Morning Locale of a 

 shooter's cabin Life in the mountains The red deer Return to the 

 hut Luxury of a cold bath. 



THE nineteenth of August, that busy day of preparation 

 with Irish sportsmen, came at last. An unusual commotion 

 was evident among my kinsman's household, and there was a 

 wondrous packing up of camp-beds, culinary utensils, baskets 

 and bottles, arms and ammunition in short, of every necessary 

 article for the support and destruction of life. At dawn of day 

 four horses set off heavily laden ; shortly after, a second 

 division of dogs and guns moved under a careful escort ; the 

 " otter-hunter" hobbled off while I was dressing ; and the 

 piper, the lightest-laden of all concerned, closed the rear. 

 After breakfast, two ponies were brought to the door, and, 

 with a mounted attendant to carry our cloaks, my cousin and I 

 pursued the same route that the baggage had already taken. 



Talk not of India ! Its boasted gang of servants is far 

 surpassed by the eternal troop of followers appertaining to 

 an Irish establishment. Old John tells me that sixteen 

 regulars sit down to dinner in the servants' -hall, and that at 

 least an equal number of supernumeraries are daily provided for 

 besides. When I hinted to my cousin the expense that must at- 



record which could parallel it, except in the celebrated case of the Kil- 

 kenny cats, whose respective demolition of each other is as wonderful as 

 authentic. 



" A party angling at Sunbury, one of them sat across the head of the 

 boat, as a punishment inflicted on him for wearing his spurs. Another, 

 having caught a gudgeon, stuck it on one of the spurs, which he (the 

 delinquent in the bow) not perceiving, in a few minutes a large jack bit 

 at the gudgeon, and the spur being crane-necked, entangled in the gills 

 of the jack, which, in attempting to extricate himself, actually pulled the 

 unfortunate person out of the boat. He was with difficulty dragged on 

 shore, and the fish taken, which was si prodigious size" 



Now, after this cautionary notice of ours, we do assert that any gentle- 

 man who goes to fish in crane-necJcs, and disposes of his legs overboard, 

 with a gudgeon on the rowel, is not exactly the person on whose life, were 

 we agent to a company, we should feel justified in effecting a policy of 

 insurance. 



