DEER-DEIVING IN MULL. 39 



Now for the Garrochree stag ! " We know his tricks 

 only let him try them/' was the boast of our party when 

 marching to rouse the doomed monster. His retreat was 

 securely barred by my eldest son, while I took my former 

 vantage-ground to give notice of his approach by a wave of 

 my cap. He was at home as usual, but no persuasion could 

 force him from his fastness. In vain Maclean's dog found 

 him several times hid in an impenetrable thicket : he always 

 ran the ring of the jungle, and then clapping suddenly down, 

 was lost until he was rested for another race. I never ceased 

 watching the old collie, and never saw such endurance and 

 pluck shown by any dog that ran the foot. Sticking to his 

 track like a bloodhound, not once overrunning it, or slack- 

 ing his pace, facing briers and whins that appalled the other 

 dogs, and all the time attending to the slightest signal of his 

 master, he proved himself nobly possessed of intelligence, 

 perseverance, and self-command, qualities which have always 

 been the making of great men ! 



Eeturning home jaded enough by a hard day, yet pleased 

 with its success, we were welcomed by the Ugly Buck and his 

 master, just arrived from Scalastal. As we dared not part 

 them again, we despatched the pair in the fishing-coble to 

 bring home the hart the hind lay within a few hundred 

 yards of the house. 



A Scotch mist was a good excuse for declining the hills 

 next morning, and as there were only two more days before 

 the steamboat touched at our island, the dogs would be nicely 

 rested for the concluding hunt. It was a lovely one that last 

 day in Mull bright, calm, and bracing enough to inspirit a 

 clod. Of course, the first point to prove was whether the stag 

 would try skulking tactics. A short cut led me to the look- 

 out on the hill ; but my son had to go round with the beaters 

 and ascend the high ground from behind, so as to humour the 

 wind and reach his ambush unobserved. I saw him breasting 

 the hill and nearly on its crest, when one of the shepherds 



