184 DAYS OF DEER-STALKING. 



feathered Mercury, I pray and beseeech you not to swerve 

 so undecidedly to the north and to the south, but resolve 

 me at once towards which point of the compass you mean 

 to make your summerset ; for your pony, mark me, is a 

 recusant, and, sooth to say, I never saw any animal less 

 solicitous of another, than that beastie is of his rider. There 

 now, hope you're not hurt. Pick him up, Charlie, and 

 take on the grappling-hooks to yon pool ; you will get the 

 hart out easily there, for he will sweep round in the cheek 

 of the stream. 



Out he was taken triumphantly, and there he lay on the 

 green sward, bausy and sleek, " the admired of all admirers." 

 Some praised his beautiful form, and held up his wide- 

 spreading antlers ; whilst others (not oblivious of currant- 

 jelly) began to handle him after the fashion of Parson 

 Trulliber. Certain it is he enjoyed great posthumous fame. 

 But here comes Jamieson, hurried and heated with toil. 



" Well, Thomas,* have you finished that great devil ?"f 



" Yes, I got him on Ben-y-venie, where he went last to 

 bay. But both dogs are wounded : Tarff not much ; but 

 Derig, you see, is stabbed badly in four places ; and I doubt 

 he may not recover." 



" Ah, poor fellow, what terrible wounds he has in his 

 chest and loins ; that in his side is not so bad, for I see the 

 horn has only passed between his skin and his ribs. Well, my 

 brave Derig, you shall go home in the cart, and be carefully 

 looked after. And the great black deer, Jamieson, that 

 Shuloch took into Glen Mark ; did you get him ?" 



" Quite easy ; he was shot through the body, and made 

 but a poor bay." 



" Capital ; we have made clean work of it, then, at last." 



"Joy, joy to you, Lightf oot ; they say you have killed 

 two first-rate harts : what a happy mortal you must be ! 

 But do, pray, tell me who that smart foreigner is who so 

 nearly spoiled all our sport." 



* Thomas Jamieson lived formerly at Abbotsford, and came into the 

 author's service many years ago with Sir Walter Scott's permission. He 

 now acts as principal gamekeeper, and is in every way a most valuable 

 servant. 



t The author has kept the horns of this deer, which are splintered at the 

 points, by coming in contact with the rocks when the dogs escaped from 

 the thrust. 



