PETEtt BilECK. 249 



and when they have them there, they keep them as long 

 as they can ; but unless they go clear away to another 

 forest, they generally return by a circuit with a side wind 

 at night. The only method to defeat these lawless pro- 

 ceedings, is to throw up peat bothy s near the outskirts of 

 the forest at proper intervals, and place keepers in them. 

 Such men must be constant in their residence, or the 

 poachers will exchange places with them. 



I will now relate a story, which shows that the keepers 

 themselves had not in former times a very nice perception 

 of equity : 



In the month of July, 1783, the late Duke of Atholl 

 summoned his three principal foresters, John Crerar, 

 Moon, and Peter Robertson, and promised a handsome 

 reward to him who should kill the fattest hart within the 

 allotted period of two days, which was meant as a present 

 to the king (George III.). Crerar and Moon set forward 

 on the following morning before day -break, each attended 

 by a hillman, and provided with a horse. Not so Peter 

 Robertson, better known by the name of Peter Breck 

 (from his being pitted with the small-pox). He had re- 

 volved a scheme in his mind which required privacy and 

 craft worthy of the best times of Johnny Armstrong. A 

 sort of raid it was, or lifting from his neighbours' grounds, 

 that is to say, from the lands of Gaig. * These lands were 

 at the time possessed by Stewart of Garth (the late Ge- 

 neral Stewart's father), and another gentleman ; they kept 

 their sheep in Gaig all the summer, and during the har- 

 vest, and on a low farm in the winter and spring. Alex- 

 ander Mac Dougall and Archibald Mac Dermid were 

 * Spelt also Gawick. 



