144 OVERWHELMING KINDNESS. 



has the charge of is his great object ; he means to take 

 care of you as if you were his only son, the remaining 

 prop of his family. Anxious to give you every possible 

 chance, he creeps, runs, and wades, unmindful only that 

 he is a son of the mountains, whilst you, perhaps, were 

 born in the Lincolnshire fens, that his is the speed of 

 the roe, and yours the pace of a frog ; thus, whilst you 

 are in such an exhausted state as to require the kindest 

 and most unremitting attentions of the humane society, 

 he is perfectly convinced that you are enjoying the highest 

 degree of human felicity, unbroken in wind, and unde- 

 cayed in strength. 



In this dilemma what is to be done ? I agree with you 

 that it is a thousand pities so fine a youth should perish 

 prematurely ; still I cannot allow you to speak of your 

 distress ; though that, indeed, you could not conveniently 

 do, for want of breath, and if you could, you would only 

 frighten the deer, without bettering your own condition. 



You are at your last gasp, that is evident : perhaps, then, 

 you had better do as the fat knight did, when the hot and 

 termagant Scot was about to pay him " Scot and lot too," 

 namely, to fall prostrate, and feign to be extinct, leaving 

 Donald to speak a dirge over you in his most harmonious 



Gaelic. 



" Death has not slain so fat a deer to-day." 



Now, after all this, perhaps you will tell me that I have 

 undervalued your powers. I dare say I have ; there is not, 

 indeed, the least doubt of it. To speak fairly, I think our 

 young sportsmen from the south (I mean the most active 

 of them) are fully as quick, and perhaps more so, than a 

 Highlander, for a short distance ; but when it comes to a 



