FORESTER AND POACHERS. 127 



poacher, who, with perhaps less right, but equal skill 

 and ardour, has sought his pastime in the forest. 



The following are the particulars. On a dark and 

 howling night, within the damp and lichen-covered 

 walls of the King's Cave, were congregated a band of 

 poachers, who had long levied their " black mail " on 

 the forest, in the form of fat bucks, stately stags, and 

 yeld hinds, and whose sagacity had baffled the utmost 

 skill and vigilance of the keepers and foresters of the 

 district. Thus, inured to danger, their highland spirits, 

 naturally bold and energetic, had acquired a degree of 

 reckless daring which rendered it hazardous to interfere 

 with them ; and though liberal rewards were held out 

 to the keepers who should detect and bring the 

 offenders to justice, those officials were sufficiently 

 acquainted with the numbers and the character of the 

 men they had to deal with, to shrink from bringing 

 matters to a crisis ; and preferring to connive at what 

 their own interest and safety deterred them from 

 preventing, so long as depredations were not too 

 flagrant, they studiously avoided any collision with the 

 marauders. 



On the occasion in question, the party assembled 

 was composed of some of the most notorious and daring 

 individuals in the neighbourhood. The storms of the 

 previous day had driven the deer in large numbers to 

 the shelter of the corrie below the cave; and the object 

 of the band was to await the dawn, and then, inter 

 cepting the herd as they took their departure by a 

 favourite pass to the more secluded heights above, 

 to single out the finest for their own use. 



It so chanced that one of the foresters, by name 

 Donald Oag, or the younger Donald, was returning 

 from his rounds on the mountain. The storm had 

 detained him to a later hour than usual in some 



