226 VARIATION IN SPORT. 



a bang, as he stalked up to me, evidently full of some- 

 thing. At last out it came ; there were twelve stags 

 within a mile of us. He pointed out the spot, and I 

 could see them with the naked eye, as they rose one 

 by one from their bed of long heather, and were 

 stepping downwards slowly, eating as they advanced. 

 Gillespie pointed out a pass through which they must 

 go if disturbed from below, and tried to prevail on me 

 to go there and have a shot ; but he had no ball, so I 

 would not go, but as I wanted a deer for the larder, I 

 allowed him to go and have a try. Away he went with 

 a will, as might be seen by his jog trot, through the 

 moss, and, taking a circuit of about three miles at 

 least, appeared on the top of the pass. I then sent 

 Jemmy to start the deer, but he had scarcely moved 

 away when I hooked a large fish. Though in rather 

 a bad place, I trusted to land him by myself, and was 

 busy head and hand in rather a prolonged battle, when 

 boom went the echo, or, rather, the hundred echoes of 

 a shot. On turning in the direction, there was one of 

 the unfortunate stags bowling along over the rocks, 

 and the other eleven rushing past me. Fortunately, 

 the pass is so narrow (I have been there to examine it 

 since, and it is not above six feet wide) that he put the 

 whole charge of shot into the beast's head, and killed 

 him dead at once. 



I got three fish out of the loch that evening before 

 it became a dead calm, and the midges (the only real 

 nuisance in the Highlands) forced us to our hole. 

 There, a stifling cloud of heather smoke soon made 

 them scarce. This cave or hole that I have mentioned 

 once or twice I may as well describe : it is formed by 

 a huge boulder stone, which, along with many thousand 

 others, had fallen from the rock above, and had a 



