CHAPTER XXXV 



AN OCTOBER DAY IN THE FOREST 



FOR days a south-easterly wind, blowing with the force 

 of half a gale, had brought mist and rain to the hills. 

 So low were the hurrying clouds, they almost descended 

 to the remote stalking-lodge lying near the head of a wind- 

 swept glen and fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. 



Then one morning, when the stalking season had but 

 three more days to run, the wind commenced to veer. Rain 

 still fell in torrents, but the shift of the wind from south-east 

 to west brought, as it almost always does, a lifting of the 

 clouds. 



By ten o'clock, for the first time for almost a fortnight, 

 the tops of the high hills were showing, and as the stalking- 

 party left the lodge the wind, now fresh and a little north of 

 west, gave promise of a fine day to follow. 



In the bog migratory snipe crouched low. The burns were 

 big. Each corrie showed a snow-white streak where a hill- 

 stream fell in headlong rush to the parent glen. From Loch 

 Bhradain the boat had been swept by the flood ; it lay several 

 hundred yards down the burn, intact, though half-submerged. 



Opposite us, in a steep and sheltered corrie, were two 

 good stags and a number of hinds near them. One of the 

 stags had rounded up all the ladies and, as we watched him 

 through the glass, moved restlessly about, roaring from time 

 to time. At length he lay down in a peaty hole, rubbing his 

 head and antlers in the soft peat to cool himself, and sub- 

 sequently scraping his peat-laden horns against his sides. 

 The sun, breaking through the clouds, shone clear on the 

 corrie, showing up each hind with great distinctness. 



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