REMINISCENCES OF A ROSS-SHIEE FOREST. 115 



and affable Home Secretary hares writhed in the 

 agonies of death within a yard of the toe of my boot. 

 A favourite retriever, with a dismal howl, nearly up- 

 set me once or twice in an abortive attempt to get 

 shelter. (When that dog goes to the majority, I 

 mean to have a "post-mortem" on him. I've a 

 curiosity to know the exact quantity of " No. 5 " 

 he absorbed that day.) Even in such an awful 

 position I managed to retain my presence of mind, 

 and, after dodging a "right and left" from either 

 flank, to kill a bird now and then on my own ac- 

 count. Still I admit I could not at first keep my 

 head in presence of the "monarch of the forest." 

 Excitement completely got the better of me. And 

 if you don't keep your head, depend upon it he icill 

 keep Ms. 



And now a word about those Highland gillies with 

 whom the deer-stalker spends in the season ten 

 or twelve hours out of every twenty-four. Let us 

 speak of things as we find them. I have found them 

 uniformly first-rate fellows, grand walkers, wonder- 

 fully patient under disappointment, with the keenest 

 appreciation of a joke, whatever Sydney Smith may 

 say of Scotchmen and surgical operations, and with a 

 desire to show sport that no difficulties can overcome. 

 I have heard them called greedy, and I have heard 

 them called sulky. As to their greed, they are very 

 badly off some of them, poor fellows, inhabiting cot- 

 tages little better than those we read of in the " Joyce 



