268 ADVENTUKE IN GLEN TILT. 



ground rapidly. Thus they were reduced to the pre- 

 dicament either of surrendering or giving battle. Things 



being in this state, O e motioned to them with his 



hand to keep back, and told them that if they did not 

 mind his voice, he would send a stronger and a more un- 

 welcome messenger to them. They paid no heed to this 



menace ; and O e, actually putting his cowardly 



threat into execution, levelled his piece and fired. The 

 ball struck the snow at the feet of one of the party. 



S and R , his comrades, were thunderstruck 



at this mad act of O e, and peaceably awaited the 



coming up of the other party, who proved to be poachers 

 like themselves. The man fired at was outrageous, and 

 he had good reason to be so ; but after various threats on 

 one side, and submission on the other, matters at length 

 took a pacific turn. 



These poachers who had given chase, finding that others 

 of the fraternity were before them, and were putting a 

 complete obstacle to their success, hid their guns, and 

 endeavoured, by passing for keepers, to drive them out 

 of the forest. The finesse, as has been seen, wanted but 

 little of ending in bloodshed. 



When men went forth singly on these unlawful ex- 

 cursions, they were sometimes placed in considerable 

 difficulties for want of efficient assistance. A poacher 

 had very lately a desperate struggle in Glen Tilt, the 

 particulars of which I mention as they came from his own 

 mouth, for he was never discovered. 



Pie set off in the evening, that he might be on a deer 

 cast by the grey of the morning : whilst it was dark he 

 descried the horns of a deer in a hollow very near him ; 



