52 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [cHAP, Vv 
Many pwachers of the class I have here described are of re- 
spectable origin, and are well enough educated. When my 
aforesaid acquaintance Ronald called on me, he had a neat kind 
of wallet with his dry hose, a pair of rather smart worsted-worked 
slippers (he did not seem disposed to tell me what fair hands had 
worked them), and clean linen, &c. He wore also a small 
French gold watch, which had also been given him. Several of 
the Highlanders who have lived in this way emigrate to Canada, 
aud generally do well; others get places as foresters and keepers, 
making the best and most faithful servants. Their old allies 
seldom annoy them when they take to this profession, as there is 
a great deal of good feeling amongst them, and a sense of right, 
which prevents their thinking the worse of their quondam com- 
rade because he does his duty in his new line of life. 
There is another class of hill poacher—the old, half worn-out 
Highlander, who has lived and shot on the mountain before the 
times of letting shooting-grounds and strict preserving had come 
in. These old men, with their long single-barrelled gun, kill 
many a deer and grouse, though not in a wholesale manner, 
hunting more from ancient habit and for their own use than for 
the market. I have met some quaint old fellows of this descrip- 
tion, who make up by cunning and knowledge of the ground for 
want of strength and activity. I made acquaintance with an old 
soldier, who after some years’ service had returned to his native 
mountains, and to his former habits of poaching and wandering 
about in search of deer. He lived in the midst of plenty of them 
too, in a far off and very lonely part of Scotland, where the keepers 
of the property seldom came. When they did so, I believe they 
frequently took the old man out with them to assist in killing a 
stag for their master. At other times he wandered through the 
mountains with a single-barrelled gun, killing what deer he 
wanted for his own use, but never selling them. I never in my 
life saw a better shot with a ball: I have seen him constantly 
kill grouse and plovers on the ground. His occupation, I fear, 
is at last gone, owing to changes in the ownership and the letting 
of the shooting, for the last time I heard of him he was leading 
an honest life as cattle-keeper. 
When this man killed a deer far from home, he used to go to 
the nearest shepherd’s shealing, catch the horse, which was sure to 
