196 DAYS OF DEER-STALKING. 



who should kill the fattest hart within the allotted period 

 of two days, which was meant as a present to the king 

 (George III.) Crerer and Moon set forward on the follow- 

 ing morning before daybreak, each attended by a hill-man, 

 and provided with a horse. Not so Peter Robertson, better 

 known by the name of Peter Breck (from his being pitted 

 with the small-pox). He had resolved a scheme in his 

 mind which required privacy and craft worthy of the best 

 times of Johnny Armstrong. A sort of raid it was, or lift- 

 ing from his neighbours' grounds that is to say from the 

 lands of Gaig.* These lauds were at the time possessed by 

 Stewart of Garth (the late General Stewart's father), and 

 another gentleman ; they kept their sheep in Gaig all the 

 summer and during the harvest, and on a low farm in the 

 winter and spring. Alexander MacDougall and Archibald 

 MacDermid were shepherds in Gaig for many years ; and 

 they had taken a fawn, f which they tamed, and brought 

 up with two milch cows that were pastured in Gaig all the 

 summer; and at the time I am now treating of, this pet 

 hart was five years old. He was taken to the low farm 

 during winter and spring, and generally lodged every night 

 in the barn ; they fed him upon oats, hay, barley, or peas 

 in the straw, of which latter provender he was extrava- 

 gantly fond. By these means he became enormously fat. 

 and of a towering size, so that he probably exceeded in 

 weight any hart in the forest of Atholl. Now Peter Breck 

 was mindful of this bonny beast, and had often turned the 

 tail of his eye upon him ; but his virtue, or, it may be, the 

 manner in which the animal was guarded, had hitherto 

 borne him out against all temptations. That virtue, how- 

 ever, so impregnable when little 'was to be gained, began to 

 succumb before the promised reward. Great allowances 

 must be made for our friend Breck's backsliding, for lifting 

 was not quite disgraceful in those days ; besides the animal 

 was fat, stupendous in size, and, in short, altogether unde- 

 niable. So Peter took his sheltie and attendant, slunk 

 away cannily in the gloaming, proceeded up Glenbruar, and 



* Spelt also Gawick. 

 t Calf ia the proper term, but both are used. 



