THE COOKERY OF VENISON 297 



Glendearg. The saintly man had been rewarded for 

 the effort by the sight of a sublime haunch which had 

 not been brought up in the hampers on the sumpter 

 mules. And the sympathetic refectioner explains in 

 glowing terms the provenance of the unexpected dainty. 

 ' So please your Holiness and Lordship, he is a son of 

 the woman of the house, who hath shot it and sent it 

 in killed but now ; yet as the animal heat hath not 

 left the body, the kitchener undertakes it shall eat 

 as tender as a young chicken and this youth hath a 

 special gift in shooting deer and never misses the 

 heart or the brain, so that the blood is not driven 

 through the flesh, as happens too often with us. It is 

 a hart of grease your Holiness has seldom seen such 

 a haunch.' 



The kitchener knew something of his business. 

 Who (see the remarks of the British Solomon in ' The 

 Fortunes of Nigel ') says ' hart of grease says much ; ' 

 for the fault of the Scottish red deer is deficiency in 

 fat. So much so, that it is often supplemented from 

 the humbler mutton. The kitchener was right in 

 dwelling on the merits of a hart clean-killed ; but we 

 greatly doubt whether that haunch from Glendearg 

 could have * eaten tender as a chicken.' It had been 

 carried down the glen from the enchanted spring, and 

 had time enough to cool and to stiffen. But Scott, 



