78 DAYS OF DEEP-STALKING. 



reappearing with a bound upon the moss-hags, like a stone 

 hurled downwards in pure pastime. Arrived in the glen, 

 he kept twisting and lurching in the darkest coloured 

 ground, and, by making a circuit, managed to cross the 

 stream out of sight of the game. Here we will leave him 

 for the present, full of the importance of his embassy, and 

 sensible that all his movements would be seen and canvassed. 

 While the sportsmen were lying down in the heather 

 awaiting the event of Maclaren's mission, Tortoise pointed 

 out the various features and nature of the wild tract of 

 country that lay around them. 



" We are now," says he, " on Ben-y-venie, which means 

 the middle hill, or if you delight more in its other appel- 

 lation, on Beinn-a-Wheadhounedh. That bulky, round 

 headed mountain to the right is Ben-y-chait, from which 

 we are separated by Glen Dirie. The mountain tract to 

 the left consists of Craggan-breach, Sroin-a-chro, and Cairn- 

 marnach. And this deep glen to the east is Glen Mark. 

 You see by the indistinctness of the objects, how deep it 

 lies beneath us ; the river that runs through it in beautiful 

 curves, as if loth to leave the solitary pass, is called the 

 Mark : listen attentively, and you will hear a faint, hollow 

 noise coming up the glen from afar ; this is the sound of its 

 waters falling into the Tilt. Some few miles away to the 

 south, it forces its passage through a gloomy channel 

 between the mountain crags, then dives through groves 

 of birchwood ; after which begins its ceaseless toil, it 

 rushes headlong into the Tilt, for ever doomed to struggle 

 with still more turbulent waters. 



"Beyond these glens and mountains, many a mile and 

 many a hill top lie between us and the end of our cast, and 

 the whole is terminated by large pine woods. 



" So much for our ground. You will soon see what we 

 are attempting to do with those deer. In sportsman's 

 language we have the command of this mountain, as well 

 as of the glens and hill-sides on each hand of us, or at least 

 we shall have it, when the men are arrived at their posts ; 

 for one of them will be on Ben-y-chait, on our right, and 

 the other on Sroin-a-chro, on our left : we shall remain on 

 this hill in the centre, and they will endeavour to put the 



