230 THE LAST HART BROUGHT TO BAY. 



Three stout ponies, with redundant manes and shaggy 

 coats, came slowly winding down the glen, each with a 

 magnificent deer corded on his back. Tortoise had gone 

 rapidly forward, with a fresh dog and a hill-man, in quest 

 of Douglas and the deer : faintly he has heard the bay : 

 now it peals louder and louder, as he rounds the wooded 

 promontory. 



" Now, speed, speed thee, Sandy ; quick to the Duke, 

 and tell him we have a noble hart at bay ; this torrent and 

 these cliffs he himself cannot gain, but say I will break the 

 bay, and get him down to the Tilt, where he shall surely 

 die the death. Off with you, lose not a moment, for time 

 presses. Nay, never go round by the bridge, man, the 

 river, though swollen, is still fordable here, and will not 

 wet you above your waist; plunge through at once. 

 Well done, stout Sandy, you bear yourself like a true 

 man." 



Time, indeed, was waning fast, for it was long since the 

 birchen leaves had trembled and glittered in the sunbeams, 

 and the golden splendour, which so lately slept upon the 

 mountain-top, had already died away, consigning it to its 

 own stern and rugged nature. The air was coming up 

 the glen, dank and chill ; hill, brae, wood, and precipice 

 were beginning to mingle in one universal melancholy 

 mass. 



The hart had got into the river Mark, just above the 

 spot where it comes brawling into the Tilt ; it was one of 

 those deep chasms where the sunbeam never enters; in 

 most places the rocks dipped steep, smooth, shelving 

 down to the flood. There were huge blocks of granite in 

 the channel, and it seemed wonderful how the vexed 



