NOBLE SPORT. 309 



"Well, this is a noble day's sport; but you must say 

 nothing about the hind at the castle, Maclaren. To be 

 sure she will be seen to-morrow at the slaughter-house, and 

 no doubt she will have companions of the same gender; 

 but sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. And indeed 

 it is of no consequence, for she will make soup fit for the 

 supper of Lucullus, if you know who he was, Peter?" 



"No, I do not. Was he a Badenoch man ?" 



" Not exactly ; nor had he Badenoch cooks, that ever I 

 heard of." 



The parties now met, and exchanged greetings and con- 

 gratulations. There were six first-rate harts slain at the 

 wood, and two lesser harts and two hinds at the peat stacks. 

 The Duke of Atholl's deer (he had shot three in all) were 

 the largest ; for he had ever a quick eye, and an amazing 

 tact in selecting his quarry. One of these was lying on 

 the moor unable to rise, but still alive. It proved to be 

 the large mouse-coloured hart, which had escaped the 

 stalkers at Cairn Cherie, and whose fate had been prophe- 

 sied. A hill-man, unaccustomed to treat with such 

 dangerous animals, went up to him and seized him by the 

 horns without ceremony. An evil deed it was for him ; 

 for the stag, tossing up his head, cut him with one of his 

 brow antlers between the eyes, dividing the flesh up his 

 forehead, and giving him a frightful wound. The poor 

 fellow ran up to the Duke, and saying, " Yon was an unco' 

 crabbed beast," fell senseless at his feet. He soon recovered 

 himself, however, and was kindly administered unto, the 

 men deluging his wound with whiskey, which they esteem 

 a sovereign remedy for all evils under the sun. 



Ponies had been kept in readiness to take home the 



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