BLUS1VH STAGS. 29 



was water and slippery earth. On top of it water and slithering sleet. 

 I congratulated myself on the forethought, almost inspiration, as I was 

 ignorant of the country, which had given hob nails to my shoes. Slide 

 and creep and slide we went down, down, down to the bottom of it. 



On the more level land at the foot of the sharp slope, peat hags and 

 rocks, and every gully held a burn and every burn full of wet, wet 

 water. At the lower level the sleet was rain. The wind ripped and 

 roared, its velocity always high, its direction changing in the wink of 

 an eye a quarter way round the compass. Bad stalking weather, to be 

 sure, for one could never tell when a beast might catch our wind. 



Now there came four or five miles of muck, muck, climb and slide, 

 and trudge and wade, through broken ground, mostly across the wind, 

 then finally we swung around until it blew squarely in our faces when 

 it did not change its mind and switch us from the sides. 



In all this tramp no word was spoken. Occasionally Donald would 

 stop to spy, but it was not much use. His glass would fog although 

 he nursed it carefully under a big red handerchief, and I had long 

 since giving up trying to spy anything for myself through my glasses. 



Suddenly Donald stopped. So did I. He motioned me forward with 

 an inviting forefinger. When I came up, wondering what was 

 toward, he said in a husky voice but in accents of greatest respect : 



"Wad the General be after having lunch noo?" The General would, 

 and said so. 



There was an especially nasty peat hag near, and in the lee of its 

 further side there seemed some possible shelter. Donald tore up some 

 handfuls of heather and placed them upon the stark, black mud, and 

 here, with my back to the wall I sat down, while the gillie coming up 

 spread upon my knees the contents of the canvas haversack which he 

 carried. 



I was greeted upon assuming a sitting posture by one small but 

 vigorous and extremely frigid stream of water, probably dirty, which 

 gushed from the overhanging bank above my head and gaily coursed 

 its way down my spinal column. I was so wet before that that a little 

 water made not much difference, and I merely leaned forward suffi- 

 ciently until the stream cleared my collar and hit me in the middle of 

 the back. 



