FOEESTER AND POACHERS. 



suppress the lawless proceedings at which he had 

 hitherto connived; and while no one was a more 

 determined foe to the poacher, not only did he rise in 

 the estimation of his employers, but even his enemies 

 could not but respect him for his conscientious dis- 

 charge of duty. Such eventually was the effect of his 

 firm and judicious administration, that poaching 

 gradually ceased, until over those hills which had so 

 lately been infested by these human vermin, the deer 

 at length roamed in security. 



Such are two of the stories with which we were 

 entertained by the fox-hunter, while the weather 

 without was still unpropitious as ever ; and within, but 

 for the warming effects of the toddy, it would not have 

 been much better. Other stories did he recite, but 

 though interesting when told in all the poetry of 

 Gaelic, they would suffer materially by the loss of 

 pathos and expression which a translation fails ade- 

 quately to reproduce. But I could not help thinking 

 how the naturalist must envy the opportunities for 

 observation enjoyed by such an one as the man before 

 me ; whose daily occupation requires that his life 

 should be spent chiefly in the open air, by the loch or 

 the mountain, sometimes for days together with no 

 roof above his head, save the vaulted sky, and with no 

 companionship but that of his faithful dogs. 



At one time, it may be, he is laying siege to the den 

 of some vixen, and patiently watching for the appear- 

 ance of the mother and her cubs. There he sits for 

 one, two, or even, as he himself assured me, three days 

 without sleep, and with no nourishment beyond that 

 afforded by the juniper-berries which grow close at 

 hand, and the small flask of whisky in his " sporran ; " 

 and soothed by that "little tube of mighty power," 



