DEER-STALKING. 11 



wadna do afore his face " was generally one of the earliest 

 astir, he was oftener the " first foot " than any other body ; 

 and as he came, crooning some old Gaelic song, with his staff 

 over his shoulder, and ..gave his blithe salutation, " Goot mor- 

 nin', goot mornin' ! goot sport, goot sport ! " a stranger would 

 wonder at the look of gloom which overshadowed the fores- 

 ter's face, and the scarcely articulate grunt which was his only 

 reply, sometimes followed by the half-muttered exclamation, 

 " Chock that body ! " To shoot a wild swan was reckoned a 

 most unlucky feat. One severe winter, when after water-fowl 

 with another man, four hoopers were discovered close to the 

 shore. His companion eagerly pointed them out ; when the 

 old forester, who had most likely seen them first, coolly re- 

 plied, " You see John, we'll just let them alone ! " The 

 only thing not truly national about him was substituting a 

 pinch of snuff for a quid of tobacco ; and when out on the hills 

 he has often expressed his belief, that the moss-water he was 

 sometimes obliged to drink would long ago have been the death 

 of him, had he not always followed it up by the antidote of a 

 pinch which " killed all the venom." 



The 'Edinburgh Evening Courant ' of May 27, 1843, has 

 the following notice of the subject of these remarks : " Died, 

 on Inch Lonaig, Loch Lomond, in the house in which he was 

 born, nearly a century before, Eobert Colquhoun. When 

 seven years old he was taken into the service of Sir James 

 and Lady Helen Colquhoun, and for the last few years of his 

 life it used to be his proudest boast that he had served four 

 of the chieftains of Colquhoun, his fealty descending unim- 

 paired from sire to son. When the suns and snows of 70 

 years had rendered him less able for active duty, he requested 

 to be allowed to end his days in the rugged and romantic 

 island of his birth. Dear to the old Highlander's heart was 

 this lone isle. Its rocks are shadowed by the finest yew-trees, 

 which in ancient times supplied the country with bows- the 

 loch around it is deeper and more blue. The island is also 



