176 MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN 



and deliverance. But there was nothing of the 

 muff in Fleeming ; he thought it a good thing 

 to escape death, but a becoming and a healthful 

 thing to run the risk of it ; and what is rarer, 

 that which he thought for himself, he thought for 

 his family also. In spite of the terrors of Rhu 

 Reay, the cruise was persevered in and brought 

 to an end under happier conditions. 



Summer One year, instead of the Highlands, Alt Aussee, 

 in the Steiermark, was chosen for the holidays ; 

 and the place, the people, and the life delighted 

 Fleeming. He worked hard at German, which 

 he had much forgotten since he was a boy ; and 

 what is highly characteristic, equally hard at the 

 patois, in which he learned to excel. He won a 

 prize at a Schiitzen-fest ; and though he hunted 

 chamois without much success, brought down 

 more interesting game in the shape of the Styrian 

 peasants, and in particular of his gillie, Joseph. 

 This Joseph was much of a character ; and his 

 appreciations of Fleeming have a fine note of their 

 own. The bringing up of the boys he deigned 

 to approve of : ''fast so gut wie ein Bauer," was 

 his trenchant criticism. The attention and courtly 

 respect with which Fleeming surrounded his wife 

 was something of a puzzle to the philosophic 

 gillie ; he announced in the village that Mrs. 

 Jenkin die silberne Frau, as the folk had prettily 

 named her from some silver ornaments was a 



