226 THE FIRST BREATH OF WINTER 



summer clothing. It takes a little experience of 

 Highland sport to adjust dress to remind one that 

 if there is any wind stirring, it is always most violent 

 on the tops ; that temperature falls one degree for 

 every three hundred feet of altitude, and that it is high 

 up that the longest lying-in-wait generally has to be 

 done. On the other hand, there is the danger of over- 

 clothing : it is difficult to say which invites the severest 

 suffering too many clothes and too thick, or too 

 few and thin. Luckily, as it turned out, I recognised 

 the change of the season, and sought out a good 

 old flannel-lined suit which had not done duty since 

 last winter. 



We took the hill in pelting rain. Our course lay up 

 the bank of a stream, lately harnessed to the servile 

 duty of providing electric light for the lodge, already 

 swollen by the night's rain into an indignant torrent. 

 A mile of ascent, and we were out of sight of dynamo, 

 turbine, workshop, and all apparatus of man ; massive 

 mountains rose in front and on either hand ; nor house, 

 nor path, nor fence offended the eye ; the crowing of an 

 old grouse cock was the only sound save the rushing of 

 the stream. Another mile we had risen a thousand 

 feet now and we were spying a great corrie. Far up, 

 just below the mist that drove along the mountain top, 

 was a large company of deer feeding on a grassy slope. 



Directly deer are spied the sportsman is reminded of 

 his inferiority to the official stalker. Up to that point he 

 may have maintained a degree of self-respect. He may 

 have successfully veiled his distress in climbing inter- 



