52 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [CHAP. v. 



Many poachers of the class I have here described are of re- 

 spectable origin, and are well enough educated. When my 

 aforesaid acquaintance Ronald called on me, he had a neat kind 

 of wallet with his dry hose, a pair of rather smart worsted-worked 

 slippers (he did not seem disposed to tell me what fair hands had 

 worked them), and clean linen, &c. He wore also a small 

 French gold watch, which had also been given him. Several of 

 the Highlanders who have lived in this way emigrate to Canada, 

 and generally do well ; others get places as foresters and keepers, 

 making the best and most faithful servants. Their old allies 

 seldom annoy them when they take to this profession, as there is 

 a great deal of good feeling amongst them, and a sense of right, 

 which prevents their thinking the worse of their quondam com- 

 rade because he does his duty in his new line of life. 



There is another class of hill poacher the old, half worn-out 

 Highlander, who has lived and shot on the mountain before the 

 times of letting shooting-grounds and strict preserving had come 

 in. These old men, with their long single-barrelled gun, kill 

 many a deer and grouse, though not in a wholesale manner, 

 hunting more from ancient habit and for their own use than for 

 the market. I have met some quaint old fellows of this descrip- 

 tion, who make up by cunning and knowledge of the ground for 

 want of strength and activity. I made acquaintance with an old 

 soldier, who after some years' service had returned to his native 

 mountains, and to his former habits of poaching and wandering 

 about in search of deer. He lived in the midst of plenty of them 

 too, in a far off and very lonely part of Scotland, where the keepers 

 of the property seldom came. When they did so, I believe they 

 frequently took the old man out with them to assist in killing a 

 stag for their master. At other times he wandered through the 

 mountains with a single-barrelled gun, killing what deer he 

 wanted for his own use, but never selling them. I never in my 

 life saw a better shot with a ball : I have seen him constantly 

 kill grouse and plovers on the ground. His occupation, I fear, 

 is at last gone, owing to changes in the ownership and the letting 

 of the shooting, for the last time I heard of him he was leading 

 an honest life as cattle-keeper. 



When this man killed a deer far from home, he used to go to 

 the nearest shepherd's shealing, catch the horse, which was sure to 



