158 DAYS OF DEER-STA LKING. 



fections aiid drugs for their desert. And the halls and 

 chambers were prepared with costly bedding, vessels, and 

 napry, according for a king ; so that he wanted none of his 

 orders more than he had been at home in his own palace. 

 The king remained in this wilderness at the hunting the 

 space of three days and three nights, and his company, as I 

 have shown. I heard men say it cost the Earl of Athole 

 every day in expenses a thousand pounds. 



" The ambassador of the pope, seeing this great banquet 

 and triumph which was made in a wilderness where there 

 was no town near by twenty miles, thought it a great 

 marvel that such a thing could be in Scotland, considering 

 how bleak and barren it was thought by other countries, 

 and that there should be such honesty and policy in it, and 

 especially in the Highland where there was but wood and 

 wilderness. But most of all, this ambassador marvelled to 

 see when the king departed, and all his men took their 

 leave, the Highlandmen set all this fair place on a fire, that 

 the king and the ambassador might see it. 



" Then the ambassador said to the king, ' I marvel, sir, 

 that you should thole (16) yon fair place to be burnt that 

 your Grace hath been so well lodged in ? ' Then the king 

 answered the ambassador, and said, ' It is the use of our 

 Highlandmen, though they be never so well lodged, to burn 

 their lodgings when they depart.' This being done, the 

 king returned to Dunkeld that night. I heard say that 

 the king, at that time in the bounds of Athole and Strath- 

 erne, slew thirty score of harts and hynd, with other small 

 beasts, as roe and roebuck, wolf and fox, and wild cats." 



In the description of the Badenoch country I have 

 recounted a story of Walter Gumming, who was killed by 

 a fall from his horse the day previous to an infamous 

 exhibition which he meditated. The story is given pre- 

 cisely according to the belief of that district. I have since 

 received more particulars of that event from the Atholl 

 country ; and from a source wholly unconnected with the 

 previous one. The Badenoch authority says that Gumming 

 was absent on some business in Atholl. 



16 " Thole," To bear with, not to oppose. 



