ADVENTURES. 177 



it. It is sometimes cut up, as more easy for conveyance , 

 and stowed away in different places, the concealment 

 being effected with great skill. I remember an 

 instance of this which came under my own observation. 

 I was out among the hills, attended by the foxhunter. 

 As we were passing through a glen, the sides and 

 bottom of which were thickly lined with heather, he 

 suddenly stopped, and, with a half-uttered malison, 

 pointed to the ground at his feet. I looked, but all I 

 could perceive was that the heather seemed slightly 

 withered ; but Gillespie stooped down, and pulling up 

 the heather, which he did without any effort, laid bare 

 the head and hide of a deer, which had been left by 

 some poachers. I might have passed the spot again 

 and again without detecting anything peculiar, but his 

 experienced eye at once saw that there had been foul 

 play. 



Two or three adventures were related to us, which, 

 as being of a somewhat questionable character, Gillespie, 

 either from modesty or policy, attributed to another 

 person, whom he professed himself to have " kenned 

 weel " in former days, though I have little doubt that I 

 might have applied to him the language of Horace, 

 " mutato nomine de te narratur," without being guilty 

 of any very serious departure from the truth. One of 

 these shows a pious fraud commonly resorted to by 

 poachers, in order that, in case they should be caught, 

 and tried before a justice for deer-killing, each may be 

 able to swear conscientiously that, though in the 

 company of his friend, he did not see him perpetrate 

 the offence. A couple go out together, and share 

 between them the sport and the danger in the following 

 manner. When a deer is discovered, one of them, 

 according to previous agreement, creeps in to have the 



