352 REMINISCENCr^S OF A IIUNTSMAnJ. 



and the tenants, too, should be requested to permit 

 their shepherds to put their shoulders to the wheel, 

 to rid the lambs of their enemy, without calling 

 for extraneous assistance. Half his life the shepherd 

 basks, blinking idly in the sun on the mountain side, 

 or sits, doing nothing in the sheltered corner of a 

 rock ; or very frequently amuses himself with finding 

 a deer lying in some corrie accessible to the gun, 

 for which he hies back to his cottage. Now, if 

 these worthies were directed, in their idle hours, 

 being on the spot, to trap the foxes, and a few 

 traps assigned them, the "tod-hunter" might be 

 dispensed with. I admit that the sort of trap they 

 must use is dano-erous in dishonest hands, where 

 there are blue hares and winged game, still I think 

 that, though it might demand a little more vigilance 

 in the keepers, yet, the interests of the deer forest, 

 which, after all, are the chief thing, would be better 

 maintained. At all events, an irresponsible intruder, 

 guns, dogs, and noise, would be got rid of; and every 

 one knows what a boon that would be to the deer on 

 the wild mountains of Lochiel. 



The time has arrived — I am about to assert a curi- 

 ous fact, and one which those blind revolutionists and 

 hazardous reformers (I speak in sense parliamentary), 

 Messrs. Cobden, Bright, Charles Villiers, and Sir Wil- 

 liam Molesworth, might not have been prepared for — 

 when machinery has made the wild stag of the High- 

 lands of more value than the sheep ; and, hear it, ye dis- 

 ciples of the Manchester school, avIio, while you preach 

 the disbanding of the public soldier, yet are the first to 

 call for his protection ; and who find yourselves obliged 

 to shoot, by private hands, your own refractory turn- 

 outs at your mills and coal-pits, as at this moment at 



