266 AN UNTOWARD SHOT. 



gave a dubious appearance to the form of things, one of 

 the drivers who was advancing from behind an eminence, 

 and who had urged the deer forward, brought his head 

 above the sky line, and held up his arms as a signal that 

 the herd was below. This fatal sign doomed him to 

 death ; his companion in the pass, as night was just 

 closing in, mistaking this figure for the head and horns of 

 a stag, fired with fatal precision, and shot the unfortunate 

 poacher in the head. As the whole party were engaged in 

 an unlawful act, they sought to conceal the miserable 

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

 they cast the body over the high and precipitous rocks, 

 by which means it was so mangled that their account of 

 the accident, by a fall from an eminence, was very gene- 

 rally believed; the sister of the sufferer, however, in 

 laying out the body, discovered a 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 retributive justice 

 was in no way concerned, the affair was hushed up, and is 

 known, even at this day, but to a few. This hind does not 

 seem to have been a real legitimate witch of the good old 

 school; for, independent of this superstition, I have heard 

 of nothing supernatural in which she had any concern. 

 She was lately found dead in Glen-Etive; and Mr. 

 Campbell of Monzie has obligingly sent me a piece of her 

 skin, which is pure white, without mixture or blemish. 



The following account will prove the extent to which 

 poaching was occasionally carried on, even in the face of 

 honest and vigilant keepers. 



One of the most notorious poachers in Atholl forest, in 



