64 LEAVES FEOM A GAME BOOK. 



the fury they brought to bear on lower-lying habitations. 

 The inside was snug enough ; big fires of peat and wood 

 burnt in our bedrooms and the dining-room, which was 

 also drawing-room, smoking and gun room rolled into 

 one. A long time after we had finished dinner the rest 

 of the procession arrived, when in due course the butler 

 announced our things were unpacked. 



The morning of the " twelfth " was darkly clouded, 

 with a strong south-west wind blowing up heavy showers ; 

 not an inviting day, so it was decided to shoot round 

 the house. Then followed an introduction to handsome, 

 good-mannered, old Allan MacCallum, the head forester, 

 and as clever a man with deer as I ever came across. 

 He and his two sons, Donald and " young " Allan, com- 

 pleted the keepering stafi*. On the way out of the house 

 we halted at the stable door to look at the mass of 

 winter snow still banked up in it, a sight at which Lucy 

 only laughed, while, turning to his butler, he told him 

 to put some champagne in ice for dinner ! 



By ten o'clock my host was working a pair of well- 

 broken Gordon setters. The light, however, was very 



