350 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



from whence came the alarm, made straight for the hill. 

 The herd was. now gathering in all directions, charging, 

 flying, reuniting, dispersing, and reassembling in utter 

 disorder, like a rout of cavalry. 



12. I made a run for the middle knoll ; two stags with 

 pretty good heads met me right in the face. I did not 

 stop to look at them, but rushed up the brae. What a 

 sight was seen from its top ! Upward of six hundred deer 

 were charging past, before, behind, around, in all directions. 

 The stately figure which I sought, the mighty black hart, 

 was slowly ascending an eminence about three hundred 

 yards off, from whence he reconnoitered the ground below, 

 while the disarray of stags and hinds gathered round him, 

 like rallying masses of hussars in the rear of a supporting 

 column. I was so intent looking upon the king of the for- 

 est that I saw nothing else. No other heads, forms, num- 

 bers, took any place in my senses ; all my faculties were on 

 the summit of that height. 



13. At this moment I felt my kilt drawn gently ; I 

 took no notice, but a more decided pull made me look 

 round. MacLellan motioned up the slope, and I saw the 

 points of a good head passing behind a little ridge, about 

 eighty yards away. I looked back at the hart ; he was 

 just moving to the hill. What would I have given to have 

 diminished a hundred and fifty yards of the distance which 

 divided us ! He passed slowly down the back of the emi- 

 nence and disappeared, and the gathering herd streamed 

 after him. The stag whose horns I had seen had come out 

 from behind the ridge, and stood with his broad side toward 

 me, gazing at the herd ; but as they moved away lie now 

 began to follow. The disappearance of the great hart and 

 the disappointment of MacLellan recalled me to the last 

 chance. I followed the retreating stag with my rifle, 

 passed it before his shoulder, whiz went the two-ounce ball, 

 and he rolled over headlong in the heath, on the other side 



