44 THE YEW 



death. The river was in low trim ; the two gillies were 

 set to guard the ford at the foot of the pool, their 

 masters opening fire with stones at short range upon 

 the cormorant every time it came up to breathe. For 

 twenty minutes by the clock the unequal strife was 

 waged four unfeathered bipeds against one feathered. 

 The issue seemed not uncertain ; cormorants cannot 

 rise on the wing from the water as lightly as a snipe 

 from a tussock; the necessary effort takes time, and 

 time was just what the bird's persecutors would not 

 allow it. The inevitable end seemed imminent; the 

 cormorant showed evident signs of exhaustion; his 

 dives became shorter ; there was despair in his eye ; his 

 long chronicle of crime was about to be expiated. 



So, at least, thought the avenging quartet on dry 

 land; when suddenly their earnest purpose was 

 whelmed in roars of laughter. The black rascal, which 

 they thought they had hunted to the very verge of 

 death, reappeared on the surface with a large eel in 

 its beak ! and this, with a toss of its nose in the air, it 

 swallowed in their presence, the relish evidently being 

 heightened by exercise. 



XIII 



People who visit the Highlands only when the hill- 

 sides are flushed with heather bloom can 

 have little idea of their exceeding melan- 

 choly in winter, when the heather is one uniform deep 

 brown. Melancholy, declared Pope, 



