90 



CHAPTER VIII. 



A DAY WITH EVERYTHING AGAINST US BAD WEATHER 

 BAD LUCK AND BAD SHOOTING. 



ON the 5th October, 1884, I started on foot from the 

 same lodge in high latitudes. It was a dull, dark 

 morning ; the tops of the highest hills had not discarded 

 their night-caps, and there was hardly any wind to 

 induce them to lay them aside. It is a long steep 

 pull up to the top of the hill above the lodge ; master 

 and man were both very hot before we were at the 

 watershed. Arrived there, we found ourselves in the 

 mist, "but pushed boldly on in hopes of finding Corrie 

 Craegacht clear, only to be disappointed, for it grew 

 thicker and thicker, till we could not see twenty yards 

 in front of us. To go on would have been spoiling our 

 ground, so we sat down and waited, talking in whispers, 

 for it was a noted corrie for deer, and they might even 

 be close at hand. In the course of an hour we were 

 both shivering with cold, and began to discuss turning 

 back and shooting grouse in the valley. Then there 

 came a puff of wind, boring a hole in the mist, and 

 disclosing two stags and five hinds feeding on a grassy 

 Hat in the crown of the corrie about five hundred yards 

 beneath us ; then the wind died away, and the mist 



