79 



CHAPTER VII. 



A FIXE WEATHER STALK, WITH WIND AND LIGHT AND LUCK 

 ALL IN OUR FAVOUR, AND HOW SEPTEMBER 3RD, 1881, 

 I KILLED MY FIRST " ROYAL," GETTING HIM HOME THAT 

 SAME EVENING. 



THE scene of this day's adventures opens in a plain- 

 built Highland lodge; going to the east it was over 

 thirty miles to the railway-station, and ten to the 

 nearest baker's or farmer's ; going north, south, or west 

 there was no habitation nearer than double that distance. 

 A long, low white house, with slate roof; stoutly built w r as 

 it ; solid it had need to be, for it is the highest inhabited 

 house in Scotland, and lies just seventeen hundred and 

 forty feet above sea-level. There, with double force 

 and power the wind can blow, the rain can fall, the snow 

 can beat and drift, and the ice-king pbnt his iron grasp. 

 No carriage, dog-cart, or "machine " had ever driven up 

 to the door, for eight miles off the road came to an end. 

 On the occasion of my first advent, as I watched the 

 " machine " depart, leaving me standing on the heather, 

 surrounded by gun and rifle-cases, portmanteaus, car- 

 tridge-boxes and wraps, I began to speculate how all this 

 was ever to get to its destination. My reverie is broken 

 by the appearance from behind a stone dyke of a couple 



