ADVENTURES AND INCIDENTS. 39!) 



and the preparation of the breakfast, which he always 

 shared ; and when \vc were seated lie would venture over 

 the sill and gather the crumbs about the table at our feet. 

 Often, when the first blood-red streaks of the autumn morn- 

 ing shone like lurid tire through the little window, we were 

 awakened by his sad and solitary whistle, as he sat on his 

 usual branch, his jet-black eye cast toward the door, im- 

 patient for our appearance. Many of his little cousins there 

 were in the wood, with whom we were also well acquainted, 

 and between us happened many an incident which increased 

 our interest and familiarity. 



12. I remember a day — one of those deep, still, blue days, 

 so solemn in the forest ; the ground was covered with a foot 

 of snow, and all the trees were hanging like gigantic ostrich- 

 feathers ; but all the world was blue ; the sky was a sleep- 

 ing mass of those heavy indigo clouds which forbode a 

 "feeding storm" ; not a tempest, but a fall of snow; for 

 in Scotland snow is called storm, however light and still it 

 falls ; thus, in tracking the deer, we say he " has just 

 brushed the storm from the heather" ; and a feeding storm 

 is when the clouds arc continually feeding the earth with 

 its velvet pall. The reflection of those deep-blue clouds 

 cast a delicate tint of the same color over the whitened 

 world. I was standing with my back against a huge pine, 

 waiting for the hunters and dogs. 



13. As I had been through all the swamps and stripes 

 and wet hollows on that side of the forest, and waded 

 through two and three feet of snow-wreaths, my kilt and 

 hose, and, as it seemed, my flesh, was saturated to the bones 

 with "snawbree," and I began to beat, first one foot, and 

 then the other, to quicken the blood, which was warm 

 enough in my trunk. I bad scarce commenced this exer- 

 cise when I heard a little " tic! " close to my ear, and the 

 soft, low voice of a bird — a sound, neither a whistle nor a 

 chirp, but which I knew very well before I turned and saw 



