AN UNLUCKY TWELVE HOURS. 95 



nearly dark, raining in torrents, and the wind increasing 

 in force every minute. We Lad four miles to go to 

 reach the track, and then another five to the Lodge. 

 As we stumbled and floundered over the moor, it soon 

 became pitch dark ; it thundered, lightened, hailed, 

 snowed, and rained -by turns, and Dame Nature did 

 her best to turn out superior samples of each for our 

 benefit. 



Just before reaching the track Donald lost his shoe 

 in a peat bog, and though he lit all the matches we both 

 had (a Highlander and a sailor can always light a match 

 in a gale, and looihface the wind to do it), we could not 

 find the shoe, and it was not until next day that he 

 retrieved it. Now, considering it was a pitch dark 

 night, and we were on the moor, it seemed to me an 

 extraordinary clever feat to be able to go straight 

 back to the spot; but Donald did it, and when ques- 

 tioned only said, "Well, sir, I just ken the ground." 



We arrived home about half-past nine, rather tired 

 and very wet. As our rule was never to wait for each 

 other after half-past eight, I found my host finishing his 

 dinner. If I had been unlucky, he had made ample 

 amends to the goddess of the larder : using only five 

 cartridges he had bagged three good stags, and two blue 

 hares on the way home, near the Lodge, and where the 

 shots could disturb no deer. My own misadventures are 

 soon forgotten in discussing his success, and hoping to 

 imitate it next day. Thus ended one of those unlucky 

 twelve hours which are often the lot of the deer-stalker, 

 but without which it would not be half the sport it is. 

 To go out day after day, never to miss, never to be 



