A HERD FOUND. 23 



retreating in that direction, except over his body. 

 While, however, Donald was telling this, we suddenly 

 caught sight of the deer collecting together, evidently 

 in alarm, ah out half a mile below us. " Am thenking 

 they've e'en winded us," said Donald, and a moment's, 

 watching assured us that he was not mistaken; for, 

 quickly forming into a compact mass, they trotted 

 downhill back to the loch, which they speedily skirted, 

 and then made for the narrow rent in the rocks, which 

 they gained shortly before Eorie. We saw them 

 emerge on the other side on an open moor, and then, 

 making a slight detour as they met the shepherd, when 

 not more than fifty yards from the chasm, they rushed 

 pell-mell across the moor, and were soon lost to us, as 

 they made for Bealloch Beg. Such was the provoking 

 conclusion of our first attempt, owing entirely to our 

 yielding to the advice of the shepherd and our own 

 inexperienced ideas. 



Donald and Walter began to soothe their disappointed 

 feelings with that everlasting resource, a pipe, while I 

 mused over our misadventure, or noted the striking 

 points of the scenery before us. Donald informed us 

 that the chasm in the rocks, to which I have more than 

 once alluded, was named in Gaelic after a spectre- 

 hunter, whose favourite position it had been. He used 

 to take his stand in the chasm in a kind of niche in the 

 rock, and, as the deer jostled and drove each other past 

 him, he would select the best, and, stabbing him with 

 a long hunting-knife, extract the heart, that being his 

 daily food, and leave the carcase for the wolf or eagle. 

 Donald added that, though he could not say how far 

 there was truth in the tradition, he knew people whose 

 fathers had themselves seen many a fine hart lying 

 dead in the pass, slain by the spectre-hunter's knife. 



