AN UNTOWARD SHOT. 317 



faced the frost and snow, when the keepers might well be 

 supposed to be absent from the hills, and made their dis- 

 positions for driving and killing the deer. Having ascended 

 the rugged steeps, and taken possession of the favourite 

 passes, they sent forth their scouts to put the herd to them : 

 these men communicated with the others, as is usual, by 

 means of signals. As the day drew to a close, and the 

 fading light gave a dubious appearance to the form of 

 objects, one of the drivers who was proceeding from behind 

 an eminence, brought his head above the sky line, and held 

 up his arms as a signal that the deer were below. His 

 companion in the pass, mistaking this figure for the head 

 and horns of a stag, fired, and shot the unfortunate poacher 

 in the head. As the whole party were engaged in an un- 

 lawful act, they endeavoured to conceal the miserable 

 manner in which the poor fellow came by his death; so 

 they threw the body over the rocks, which were of a great 

 height, by which means it was so mangled, that their 

 account of the accident, by a fall from an eminence, was 

 very generally believed. The sister of the sufferer, how- 

 ever, in laying out the body, discovered the shot wound in 

 the head, and hinted that all was not right. But as all the 

 party had been engaged in poaching, and as the fatal 

 occurrence was at all events an accident in which retri- 

 butive justice was in no way concerned, the affair was 

 hushed up, and is known, even at this day, but to a few. 



I now conclude the catalogue and description of the 

 forests and principal deer-haunts in the north. There may 

 be others with which I am unacquainted ; my omission to 

 mention such (if, indeed, such do exist) will not, I trust, be 

 imputed to my sense of their implied want of consequence, 

 but rather to the real cause, namely, that of "pure ignorance 

 on my part." 



