44 ON SALMON-FISHING WITH THE FLY. 



after all, a sly, sneaking thief, the despoiler of hen- 

 houses, and devastator of pheasantries. Who pities 

 him? who grudges these panting hounds their mouthful 

 of spite, or would rob the gallant rider of his well- 

 earned tooth and brush ? 



Deer-stalking too has its delights and inducements. 

 A manly and noble sport it is nobler far and more 

 kindred to noble minds than fox-hunting. Well can I 

 appreciate the enthusiasm of the keen-eyed hunter, 

 when on a September morn before sun-burst, he sallies 

 forth, rifle in hand, attended by a single gillie similarly 

 armed, and holding in leash a powerful stag-hound. 

 They have threaded the valley far up to its remotest 

 extremity, and are now ascending the mountain side. 

 Above them, in long wreaths, the mist is still hanging. 

 It fills the ravines and torrent courses, creeping slug- 

 gishly through them, like a thing of life and feeling. 

 For an interval, we lose sight of the deer-stalkers. 

 They are deep in the heart of the cloud, but lo ! like 

 the curtain in a theatre, up it furls, and again are they 

 descried on the highest shoulder of the mountain. The 

 sun is now out, bright and cloudless. Onward they 

 move still onward. It is an expanse of heath that 

 stretches before them, knolled here and there, and at 

 length terminated by a tarn or mountain loch, from the 

 far margin of which rises abruptly a scaur or precipitous 

 ascent, formed partly of crags and partly of loose 

 stones. But the moor is yet to be traversed three 

 weary miles at least. Twice, unsuccessfully, has the 

 prospect- glass been applied to the eye of the attendant 

 but now the halt is long, the survey steady and minute. 

 Something is discerned. The glass exchanges hands. 

 Heads are shaken, fingers pointed, the eye brightens 

 up. Far off, in the extreme of the landscape, is a speck 



