66 FORAYS AMONG SALMON AND DEER. 



His huge bony hands and broad shoulders still bore 

 testimony to the strength he had once possessed ; and 

 as he drew himself up stiffly to his full height, his whole 

 appearance was striking and even imposing. 

 As he moved about the shed, I observed that he 

 slightly halted on one leg ; and on inquiring of Donald 

 the cause, I was informed that he had been injured in 

 poaching a deer ; but that if we would produce our 

 whiskey flasks and " bide our time," we might have the 

 account of it from his own lips. Our usquebagh there- 

 fore produced, we drank to each other ; and while 

 Walter and Donald each added a pipe to their draught, 

 Rob offered to me his snuff-box. Snuff-taking has 

 been a habit in the Highlands for many generations, 

 and though with the rising one smoking has become so 

 general, as almost to supplant the more ancient fashion, 

 yet many of the most primitive in these unfrequented 

 districts, still cling tenaciously to " the old paths." 

 Rob's snuffbox was itself a curiosity, as an article of 

 home manufacture, a deer's hoof forming the box, while 

 the lid was composed of a strip of hart's horn. For 

 some time all communications were carried on in 

 Gaelic, Donald acting as interpreter ; but in vino veritas 

 is an adage old and well tested withal, and as the 

 whiskey warmed the cockles of that aged heart, aud 

 thawed the frigid exterior, it evoked the powers of 

 speech, not yet asserted ; and at length the Gaelic 

 oracle, throwing aside his reserve, poured forth his 

 responses in fluent English. " What for was he lame ? 

 'Twas just naething more than a fulish fall owre a crag 

 wi' a stag he had wounded." And then he proceeded 

 to tell us how, when on a poaching venture, he had 

 watched the beast grazing in security above a high 

 crag ; how he had stalked it, wounded it mortally, and 

 brought it to the ground ; how, in his haste lest any of 



