120 RAGING TEMPEST. 



their fears. A strong party, furnished with the necessary 

 implements, penetrated through the snowy barrier that 

 obstructed their path, and after surmounting great hard- 

 ships, they succeeded in disinterring their friends from their 

 icy graves. But even in this district, where the truth of 

 this account was known, superstition has wove round it 

 her mystic embroidery, and the story " of the hapless 

 deer-stalkers of Gaick " became henceforth a legendary 

 tale. When the late amiable and accomplished Lord 

 Webb Seymour and our distinguished philosopher Pro- 

 fessor Playfair were surveying the mineralogical struc- 

 ture of Shehallien, they were accompanied by an old 

 man as their guide, who was a schoolmaster in the neigh- 

 bourhood; and while they were walking before their 

 horses up the road, on the northern declivity of Rannoch, 

 within sight of the mountain above Gaick, he gave the 

 following version of the preceding story, adding, f There 

 was nae the like seen in a' Scotland.' 



(<f It was in the night, I think, of the 14th of February, 

 1799, that there came on a dreadful storm of wind and 

 drifting snow from the south-east, which was felt very 

 severely in most parts of Scotland. On the preceding 

 day Captain Macpherson, attended by three other men, 

 had gone out a deer-shooting in that extensive tract of 

 mountains which lies to the west of Dalnacardoch. They 

 did not return in the evening, and nothing was heard of 

 them. The next day, as soon as the storm had abated, 

 people were sent out in quest of them. After a long 

 search, the bodies were found in a lifeless state, lying among 

 the ruins of a bothy (a temporary hut) in which it should 

 seem Captain Macpherson and his party had taken refuge. 



