TO THE HILLS. 235 



CHAPTER IV. 



Excursion to the Forest. Deer alarmed by over-haste. Watching the 

 Game. Provoking Interruption. Further Delay. Anecdote: 

 Perilous Adventure: Glissade. Disappointment. Hind slaugh- 

 tered. Second Death. Anecdotes of Rats. 



ON a grey misty morning I sallied forth at day-break 

 in quest of game, with a small whiskey barrel suspended 

 from one shoulder, my rifle from the other, and mounted 

 on a highland pony, which brought me to the door of 

 Gillespie's cottage just as the sun appeared above the 

 horizon. He was up and ready, and therefore without 

 more ado I dismounted; and, as we were to be no 

 longer in the region of roads, we started both on foot. 

 The air was unusually still, and everything that had a 

 tongue wherewith to speak was telling its feelings to 

 the new-born day. On the left were heard the various 

 calls of the curlew, the heron, and sundry gulls, that 

 fed about the head of the loch ; the raven was hoarsely 

 croaking as he wheeled about the face of a high cliff 

 before us ; and, as we traversed the end of a low stretch 

 of boggy moorland extending to our right, some wild 

 ducks were disturbed by our approach, and, breaking 

 off their morning ablutions in the sedgy pools that 

 dotted the strath, mounted into the air, and in shape 

 not unlike so many winged and feathered soda-water 

 bottles, sought in rapid flight the greater security 



