292 CONTEST WITH A PHOCA. 



relief of his companions, to whose remonstrances he only 

 answered, ' D n the brute ! Did he think to give me the 

 go-by?' 



" Mr. Skene, who told me this anecdote, was himself 

 the prototype of Sir Walter Scott's story of Highland 

 Hector's contest with the phoca, in the Antiquary ; having 

 ralated to him on the spot an encounter which he had with 

 seals in descending the rocks at Dunotter, in his passage 

 to a creek, from whence he proposed to make a sketch of 

 the castle." 



During this relation the hill-man stripped off his grey 

 jacket, bared his sinewy arm, and went through the ne- 

 cessary operations of bleeding and gralloching. Every 

 movement, every finesse was exultingly run over; the 

 dogs fought ; the men laughed and drank ; and were as 

 cordial as success and right good Loch Rannoch could 

 make them. 



" But the day wears apace ; we must now separate our 

 forces, and if we forget not our cunning, we will sweep 

 these glens and mountains, and put down such an army of 

 deer as shall give free exercise to the rifles from Blair: 

 their volleying shall scare the roe in his secret glade, and 

 visions of the magnificent herd shall again warm the 

 imagination of the Southron in his festive halls, and great 

 shall be the boast of those who were present on St. 

 Crispin's Day." 



" Heyday I Why you affect to be Ossianic to-day ! 

 And, upon my word, what with the mountain air and 

 scenery, and the heroic deed I have just done, I tread the 

 heather with something of the feeling of a descendant of 

 Fingal myself. But, allons, cater we now for the ge- 



