INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 7 



or his head grown dizzy, he must have dropped per- 

 pendicularly through the air into the lake far far 

 below him. And to these tales of adventure I 

 listened with as much eagerness and curiosity as I 

 had done, when a boy, to tales of shipwreck and of 

 sailor life ; and with the same feeling too, an ardent 

 longing to share in such adventurous pastime. The 

 other, more susceptible perhaps than his companion 

 to the glories around him, would describe the scene 

 that presented itself to his astonished gaze, when, 

 having gained the summit of the mountain, the mists 

 suddenly parting let in the golden light of the rising 

 sun, and showed huge rocks and precipices, and green 

 herbage, and high-up valleys all lying close before 

 him at his feet. There was genuine enthusiasm in 

 all these descriptions, and, like all genuine feeling, it 

 did not fail of its effect. I could no longer resist 

 the desire to move with rifle at my back amid such 

 scenes ; to step along those narrow ledges of rock, or 

 creep up through the steep ravines which had become 

 almost like well-known places to me, so much had I 

 heard about them and so particular had been my 

 questionings; and at last the wish I had cherished 

 for years was realized, and I stood upon the moun- 

 tain-top and saw the chamois among the rocks. 



Deer-stalking in the forest, with all its pleasures 

 and excitement, was but tame sport to this. I could 

 now well understand how with some it could become a 

 passion so strong and irresistible that not even all the 

 hazards of a poacher's life prevented its gratification. 



