THE HILL POACHER. 347 



all his movements.* Should he detect him on the ground, 

 he takes care to have one of the best-winded assistants to 

 intercept at this point, before giving chase. This is even 

 more necessary when looking after a night-poacher. The 

 watchers are as knowing as the poacher in regard to wind, 

 always keeping to leeward of their beat, and taking 

 advantage of all the hills that give them a far look-out, 

 where the report of a gun would be most apt to reach them. 

 With the advantage of a thoroughly trained head-keeper, 

 and the expense only of the day's wages of a few watchers, 

 most Highland properties might be comparatively safe from 

 poachers, who would very soon cease to molest them. 

 These men, if resolutely seized, will seldom make deter- 

 mined resistance ; for although many of them, from motives 

 of policy, think it necessary to talk big, in order to deter 

 farmers and shepherds from coming near them, yet I have 

 known many of those gallant talkers the first to show the 

 white feather. One great black hulk, of six feet two, 

 who infested my father's moors before they were strictly 

 preserved, endeavoured, very unsuccessfully, to spread the 

 terror of his name, for he was several times found out to be 

 the most arrant craven. But, indeed, the race of Highland 



* A common but somewhat stale trick of the Highland poachers, is to 

 conceal the barrel of their gun down the leg of their trowsers, carrying 

 the stock either in the inside coat-pocket, or wrapping it in a plaid. The 

 watchers at once detect a man thus hampered, and always look upon him 

 with suspicion if he has his plaid round him. Many of them, therefore, 

 leave their gun at the nearest bothy to the ground. This avails them 

 little, as the watchers know well enough that when the poacher leaves 

 his house at a suspicious time, or bends his steps in a suspicious direction, 

 the instrument of death will turn up, as if by magic. 



