Militant Scropc 425 



advisable to send him up with the drivers, to plague 

 you : in short it was resolved that he should evacuate 

 the glen. He started joyfully, for he was a famous 

 walker out of all sight the best in France ; indeed 

 no one in any country was equal to him. But the 

 hill-men asserted that this was not his particular 

 walking day ; so that I am told he soon became most 

 deplorably exhausted, and according to all accounts, 

 delayed the drive at least an hour or so. Fortune 

 bounteously gave him many fair shots ; but alas, what 

 she distributed with one hand, she took away with 

 the other, for he missed them clean every one. 



"Mat's cest ttonnant cela. I who never make the 

 miss ! " 



" Perhaps your honour forgot to put in the baal." 



" Ah ! voila ce que c'est y vous Favez trouv^ mon ami. 

 Le moyen de tuer sans balle ! Now then, I put in the 

 powder of cannon, and there goes de balle upon the top 

 of it mort de ma vie! I now kill all the stag in 

 Scotland ; expect a leetle, and you shall surproise 

 much." 



He was a bad prophet, for he still went on, missing as 

 before amongst winking hill-men and grinning gillies. 

 At length, however, the sun of his glory (which had been 

 so long eclipsed) shone forth in amazing splendour. 

 " Fortune," says Fluellen, " is painted upon a wheel to 

 signify to you (which is the moral of it) that she is 

 turning and inconstant, and mutabilities and variations " : 

 and the turn was now in the Count's favour, for she 

 directed his unwilling rifle right towards the middle of a 

 herd of deer, which stood " thick as the autumnal leaves 



