36 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [CHAP. in. 



who answered my look with a most significant kind of silent 

 chuckle ; and, pointing at his knife, as if to say that we should 

 soon require its services, he signed to me to move a little to the 

 right hand, to get the animal free of the rock, which prevented 

 my shooting at him. I rolled myself quietly a little to one side, 

 and then silently cocking both barrels, rose carefully and slowly 

 to one knee. I had already got his head and neck within my 

 view, and in another instant would have had his shoulder. My 

 finger was already on the trigger, and I was rising gradually an 

 inch or two higher. The next moment he would have been 

 mine, when, without apparent cause, he suddenly moved, disap- 

 pearing from our sight in an instant behind the rocks. I should 

 have risen upright, and probably should have got a shot ; but 

 Donald's hand was laid on my head without ceremony, holding 

 me down. He whispered, " The muckle brute has na felt us ; we 

 shall see him again in a moment." We waited for a few minutes, 

 almost afraid to breathe, when Donald, with a movement of im- 

 patience, muttered, " 'Deed, Sir, but I'm no understanding it," 

 and whispered to me to go on to look over the ridge, which I 

 did, expecting to see the stag feeding, or lying close below 

 it. When I did look over, how ever, I saw the noble animal 

 at a considerable distance, picking his way down the slope 

 to join some half-dozen hinds who were feeding below him, 

 and who occasionally raised their heads to take a good look 

 at their approaching lord and master. " The Deil tak the brute," 

 was all that Donald said, as he took a long and far-sounding 

 pinch of snuff, his invariable consolation and resource in times 

 of difficulty or disappointment. When the stag had joined the 

 hinds, and some ceremonies of recognition had been gone through, 

 they all went quietly and steadily away, till we lost sight of 

 them over the shoulder of the next hill. " They'll no stop till 

 they get to Alt-na-cahr," said Donald, naming a winding rushy 

 burn at some distance off; ' Alt-na-cahr ' meaning the ; Burn of 

 many turns,' as far as my knowledge of Gaelic goes. And there 

 we were constrained to leave them and continue our ptarmigan- 

 shooting, which we did with but little success and less spii it. Soon 

 afterwards a magnificent eagle suddenly rose almost at our feet, as 

 we came to the edge of a precipice, on a shelf of which, near the 

 summit, he had been resting. Bang went one barrel at him, at a 



