AN OLD GAEL. 63 



CHAPTER V. 



" Creagan Eoghlevagh." Ancient Gael. Highland Shieling. Fight 

 with Stag. Stag of Rhynie. Long Stalk. The Poacher's Reli- 

 gion. The Stag concluded. 



So heavy a rain followed the events related in my 

 last, that on visiting the Redburn we found it, as 

 Donald had predicted, of a colour and composition very 

 closely resembling those of the fag-end of the coffee-pot 

 which has been " well shaken before taken." Fishing, 

 therefore, was out of the question ; and accordingly we 

 proceeded, at the suggestion of Donald, to wile away 

 the morning by a visit to an odd character, whose 

 dwelling was at no great distance, beneath a huge cliff 

 called " Creag an Eoghlevagh." In former times a 

 forester in the service of a princely nobleman, whose 

 vast estates have long since been brought to the 

 hammer and passed to other hands, he had known the 

 hills, now tenanted only by sheep, in those days 

 occupied by nothing but the red deer, the roe, the fox, 

 and other wild game. He " minded weel " the day 

 when seven fine stags were shot on one morning, just 

 beneath the present position of his cottage, though 

 nowadays they are seldom seen within six or seven 

 miles of it. Since the dispersion of the property, and 

 his own consequent dismissal from office, he had led an 

 irregular and almost lawless life. There were rumours 

 that he had been connected with the "smuggling 

 interest," and he was known to have been an extensive 

 poacher ; but he had been openly detected or convicted 

 of neither. Within the last few years, however, as the 

 natural burdens of an age now bordering closely on a 



