468 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



and enjoys one with perhaps even more zest than the laird 

 himself. He is a clannish man, loves his wild island, and has 

 a stake in it as long as there are fish in the sea, or deer on 

 the hill. I should like to introduce him to the drunken 

 penniless " wabster " of the burgh, who, upon being told that 

 his principles would lead to a national bankruptcy, doggedly 

 dived his fingers to the bottom of his pewter snuff-mull, and 

 muttered between his teeth, " 111 staund the risk." Shamish 

 probably would be unable to comprehend what national bank- 

 ruptcy meant, but rather than stand the risk of the woods and 

 the nets, and the cobles and the deer of Mull falling into 

 other hands, he would sink " reform," and the " rights of man," 

 and " social equality," and his burgh brother of the loom along 

 with them, to the bottom of the Sound. : Proud as a general, 

 he is marshalling his troops for a new point of untried strategy 

 namely, to reverse the usual course, and bring up the deer 

 from the south to the north passes. We have a finer view of 

 the hunt by this experiment of the weaver's, but it has the 

 disadvantage of giving the deer far greater choice of passes ; 

 a decided objection when there are few guns, as in the present 

 case, to guard them. I chose my stance by a rock that gave 

 a bird's-eye view of the open passages where the deer were 

 most likely to cross when pressing in advance of the beaters, 

 whose discordant yelling was heard now loud and clear, then 

 suddenly dying away according to the inequalities of the ground. 

 The hunt was still far back when I spied two deer picking 

 their steps through a vista of the wood. Sometimes they 

 would face about to listen, and again, with a dissatisfied shake 

 of the head, resume their shambling trot. Couched among 

 the heather, and screened by my granite rock, I was watching 

 their wayward path, hoping they might choose a course within 

 range of either of the two rifles guarding the upper passes. 

 My speculations about them were abruptly ended by a glance 

 at the moving legs of three deer stealing quietly among the 

 tree-stems right up to my rock. When almost within distant 



