THE MOUNTAIN-FOX. 257 



and precipices, equally callous to the winter blast or summer 

 sun. 



" Long, long ago," I was fishing with a companion of my 

 boyish days in a quiet nook of the " Pass of Glencroe," when 

 we met a man such as I have described, with a few ragged 

 terriers at his foot. He was the Arrochar fox-hunter, and 

 had been searching the high-lying shielings for a stray hound. 

 My friend remarked that he had never seen a finer specimen 

 of the genus. With his bold bearing, hardy weather-beaten 

 face, erect wiry frame, short round foot in hobnailed brogue, 

 lithe active gait, and long gun over his shoulder, this Ar- 

 rochar hillsman was the very embodiment of Evan Dhu in 

 ' Waverley.' 



The fox-hunter's occupation on Luss and Arrochar has been 

 gone for many a long year, and I never expected to see this 

 last remnant of them more. Some time ago, when landing 

 from the Loch Lomond steamboat at Balloch, on the Leven, 

 a little, bent, very round-shouldered old man, with whey- 

 coloured weaver visage, a suit of decent black clothes, splay 

 feet cased in thin Wellingtons, asked if I did not know G-regor 

 Macgregor. His voice was weak, his step tottering and feeble 

 how could I know him, poor fellow ? He was as unlike 

 the Gregor of the mountains as a turkey -buzzard to an eagle. 

 He had completely succumbed, body and mind. There he 

 was, stranded in the print-mill, like a vessel wrecked among 

 the breakers 



" Oh, how unlike her course at sea, 

 Or his free step on hill or lea ! " 



I have noticed that foxes are less addicted to the higher 

 cairns than badgers. The reason, no doubt, is that the vixen 

 likes to be in the midst of prey when rearing her litter. My 

 sons and I, however, have sometimes flushed the dog-fox on 

 the baldest mountain-tops. The sedate badger never wanders 



