48 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [CHAP. v 
“ Hieland lads.” For, although they never ill-use the keepers 
in the savage manner that English poachers so frequently do, I 
have known instances of keepers, who (although they were too 
. smart gentlemen to carry their master’s game) have been taken 
prisoners by poachers on the hill, and obliged to accompany them 
over their master’s ground, and carry the game killed on it all day. 
They have then either been sent home, or, if troublesome, the 
poachers have tied them hand and foot, and left them on some 
marked spot of the muir, sending a boy or shepherd to release them 
some hours afterwards. Going in large bodies on well-preserved 
ground, these men defy the keepers, and shoot in spite of them. 
If pursued by a party stronger than themselves, they halt occa- 
sionally, and fire bullets either over the heads of their pursuers 
or into the ground near them, of course taking care not to hurt 
them. The keepers go home, protesting that they have been 
fired upon and nearly killed, while the Highlanders pursue their 
sport. The grand object of the poachers being to keep out of 
the fangs of the law, they never uselessly run the risk of being 
identified, and although they frequently have licences, they 
always avoid showing them if possible, in order that their names 
may not be known. If they shoot on ground where the watchers 
know them, they take great care to avoid being seen. If they 
think there is any likelihood of a prosecution occurring, they be- 
take themselves to a different part of the country till the storm 
is blown over. In some of the wide mountain districts, a band 
of poachers can shoot the whole season without being caught, 
and I fancy that many of the keepers, and even their masters, 
rather wish to shut their eyes to the trespassing of these gangs 
as long as they keep to certain districts, and do not interfere 
with those parts of the grouse-ground which are the most care- 
fully preserved. 
Some proprietors or lessees of shooting-grounds make a kind 
of half compromise with the poachers, by allowing them to kill 
grouse as long as they do not touch the deer; others, who are 
grouse-shooters, let them kill the deer to save their birds. I 
have known an instance where a prosecution was stopped by the 
agerieved party being quietly made to understand, that if it was 
carried on, ‘a score of lads from the hills would shoot over his 
ground for the rest of the season.” 
