104 LEAVES FEOM A GAME BOOK. 



he was, we should most likely have shared a similar 

 fate ; for while his lordship's keepers were all flat on 

 their faces during the height of the storm, their master, 

 though urged by them to take up a similar position, 

 paid no heed to the tempest, and mounting his pony 

 on the bare hill top, he had hardly started homewards 

 ere they were both struck, the pony falling dead, 

 although his lordship lingered in a state of unconscious- 

 ness for a few hours. 



The 13th was fine, all traces of the storm having 

 vanished, and we got 20 brace of grouse that day, 

 which was a good bag for the place, there being but a 

 little over a thousand acres of heather. In eleven days' 

 shooting we totalled 328 head, made up of 253 grouse, 

 43 black - game, 12 hares, 9 snipe, and 11 rabbits. 

 Elibank Cottage is prettily placed high up over the 

 Tweed, though, to my mind, rather too much shut in by 

 trees. The river is said to yield good trouting, but 

 certain it is they were not to be caught in the month 

 of August by any blandishments my host or I could 

 offer. 



