Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

Confound that Regatta! What on earth had we to do on board that yacht, racing against the Meteor, unconquered winger of the western seas? Two days ago we could have sworn that no possible temptation could divorce us from our unfinished article; and yet here we are with unsullied pen, under imminent danger of bartering our reputation and plighted faith to Ebony, for some undescribable nautical evolutions, a sack race, and the skeleton of a ball! After all, it must be confessed that we never spent two more pleasant days. Bright eyes, grouse-pie, and the joyousness of happy youth, were all combined together; and if, with a fair breeze and a sunny sky, there can be fun in a smack or a steamer, how is it possible with such company to be dull on board of the prettiest craft that ever cleaved her way, like a wild swan, up the windings of a Highland loch? But we must make up for lost time. As we live, there are Donald and Ian with the boat at the rocks! and we now remember with a shudder that we trysted them for this morning to convey us across to the Moors! Here is a pretty business! Let us see--the month is rapidly on the wane--we have hardly, in sporting phrase, broken the back of this the leading article. Shall we give up the moors, and celebrate this day as another Eve of St John? There is a light mist lying on the opposite hill, but in an hour or two it will be drawn up like a curtain by the sunbeams, and then every bush of heather will be sparkling with dewdrops, far brighter than a carcanet of diamonds. What a fine elasticity and freshness there is in the morning air! A hundred to one the grouse will sit like stones. Donald, my man, are there many birds on the hill? Plenty, did you say, and a fair sprinkling of black-cock? This breeze will carry us over in fifty minutes--will it? That settles the question. Off with your caulker, and take down the dogs to the boat. We shall be with you in the snapping of a copper-cap.

This article, if finished at all, must be written with the keelavine pen on the backs of old letters--whereof, thank heaven! we have scores unanswered--by fits and snatches, as we repose from our labours on the greensward; so we shall even take up our gun, and trust for inspiration to the noble scenery around us. Is every thing in? Well, then, push off, and for a time let us get rid of care.

What sort of fishing have they had at the salmon-nets, Ian? Very bad, for they're sair fashed wi' the sealghs. In that case it may be advisable to drop a ball into our dexter barrel, in case one of these oleaginous depredators should show his head above water. We have not had a tussle with a phoca since, some ten years ago, we surprised one basking on the sands of the bay of Cromarty. No, Donald, we did not kill him. We and a dear friend, now in New Zealand, who was with us, were armed with no better weapon than our fishing-rods, and the sealgh, after standing two or three thumps with tolerable philosophy, fairly turned upon us, and exhibited such tusks that we were glad to let him make his way without further molestation to the water. The seal is indeed a greedy fellow, and ten times worse than his fresh-water cousin the otter, who, it seems, is considered by the poor people in the north country as rather a benefactor than otherwise. The latter is a dainty epicure--a _gourmand_ who despises to take more than one steak from the sappy shoulder of the salmon; and he has usually the benevolence to leave the fish, little the worse for his company, on some scarp or ledge of rock, where it can be picked up and converted into savoury kipper. He is, moreover, a sly and timid creature, without the impudence of the seal, who will think nothing of swimming into the nets, and actually taking out the salmon before the eyes of the fishermen. Strong must be the twine that would hold an entangled seal. An aquatic Samson, he snaps the meshes like thread, and laughs at the discomfiture of the tacksman, who is dancing like a demoniac on the shore; and no wonder, for nets are expensive, and the rent in that one is wide enough to admit a bullock.

Mr St John--a capital sportsman, Donald--has had many an adventure with the seals; and I shall read you what he says about them, in a clever little book which he has published--What the deuce! We surely have not been ass enough to forget the volume! No--here it is at the bottom of our pocket, concealed and covered by the powder-flask:--

"Sometimes at high-water, and when the river is swollen, a seal comes in pursuit of salmon into the Findhorn, notwithstanding the smallness of the stream and its rapidity. I was one day, in November, looking for wild-ducks near the river, when I was called to by a man who was at work near the water, and who told me that some 'muckle beast' was playing most extraordinary tricks in the river. He could not tell me what beast it was, but only that it was something 'no that canny.' After waiting a short time, the riddle was solved by the appearance of a good-sized seal, into whose head I instantly sent a cartridge, having no balls with me. The seal immediately plunged and splashed about in the water at a most furious rate, and then began swimming round and round in a circle, upon which I gave him the other barrel, also loaded with one of Eley's cartridges, which quite settled the business, and he floated rapidly away down the stream. I sent my retriever after him, but the dog, being very young and not come to his full strength, was baffled by the weight of the animal and the strength of the current, and could not land him; indeed, he was very near getting drowned himself, in consequence of his attempts to bring in the seal, who was still struggling. I called the dog away, and the seal immediately sank. The next day I found him dead on the shore of the bay, with (as the man who skinned him expressed himself) 'twenty-three pellets of large hail in his craig.'

"Another day, in the month of July, when shooting rabbits on the sand-hills, a messenger came from the fishermen at the stake-nets, asking me to come in that direction, as the 'muckle sealgh' was swimming about, waiting for the fish to be caught in the nets, in order to commence his devastation.

"I accordingly went to them, and having taken my observations of the locality and the most feasible points of attack, I got the men to row me out to the end of the stake-net, where there was a kind of platform of netting, on which I stretched myself, with a bullet in one barrel and a cartridge in the other. I then directed the men to row the boat away, as if they had left the nets. They had scarcely gone three hundred yards from the place when I saw the seal, who had been floating, apparently unconcerned, at some distance, swim quietly and fearlessly up to the net. I had made a kind of breastwork of old netting before me, which quite concealed me on the side from which he came. He approached the net, and began examining it leisurely and carefully to see if any fish were in it; sometimes he was under and sometimes above the water. I was much struck by his activity while underneath, where I could most plainly see him, particularly as he twice dived almost below my station, and the water was clear and smooth as glass.

"I could not get a good shot at him for some time; at last, however, he put up his head at about fifteen or twenty yards' distance from me; and while he was intent on watching the boat, which was hovering about waiting to see the result of my plan of attack, I fired at him, sending the ball through his brain. He instantly sank without a struggle, and a perfect torrent of blood came up, making the water red for some feet round the spot where he lay stretched out at the bottom. The men immediately rowed up, and taking me into the boat, we managed to bring him up with a boat-hook to the surface of the water, and then, as he was too heavy to lift into the boat (his weight being 378 lbs.) we put a rope round his flippers, and towed him ashore. A seal of this size is worth some money, as, independently of the value of his skin, the blubber (which lies under the skin, like that of a whale) produces a large quantity of excellent oil. This seal had been for several years the dread of the fishermen at the stake-nets, and the head man at the place was profuse in his thanks for the destruction of a beast upon whom he had expended a most amazing quantity of lead. He assured me that L.100 would not repay the damage the animal had done. Scarcely any two seals are exactly of the same colour or marked quite alike; and seals, frequenting a particular part of the coast, become easily known and distinguished from each other."

But what is Scrip youffing at from the bow? A seal? No, it is a shoal of porpoises. There they go with their great black fins above the water in pursuit of the herring, which ought to be very plenty on this coast. Yonder, where the gulls are screaming and diving, with here and there a solan goose and a cormorant in the midst of the flock, must be a patch of the smaller fry. The water is absolutely boiling as the quick-eyed creatures dart down upon their prey; and though, on an ordinary day, you will hardly see a single seagull in this part of the loch, for the shores are neither steep nor rocky, yet there they are in myriads, attracted to the spot by that unerring and inexplicable instinct which seems to guide all wild animals to their booty, and that from distances where neither sight nor scent could possibly avail them. This peculiarity has not escaped the observant eye of our author.

"How curiously quick is the instinct of birds in finding out their food. Where peas or other favourite grain is sown, wood pigeons and tame pigeons immediately congregate. It is not easy to ascertain from whence the former come, but the house pigeons have often been known to arrive in numbers on a new sown field the very morning after the grain is laid down, although no pigeon-house, from which they could come, exists within several miles of the place.

"Put down a handful or two of unthrashed oat-straw in almost any situation near the sea-coast, where there are wild-ducks, and they are sure to find it out the first or second night after it has been left there.

"There are many almost incredible stories of the acuteness of the raven's instinct in guiding it to the dead carcass of any large animal, or even in leading it to the neighbourhood on the near approach of death. I myself have known several instances of the raven finding out dead bodies of animals in a very short space of time. One instance struck me very much. I had wounded a stag on a Wednesday. The following Friday, I was crossing the hills at some distance from the place, but in the direction towards which the deer had gone. Two ravens passed me, flying in a steady straight course. Soon again two more flew by, and two others followed, all coming from different directions, but making direct for the same point. ''Deed, sir,' said the Highlander with me, 'the corbies have just found the staig; he will be lying dead about the head of the muckle burn.' By tracing the course of the birds, we found that the man's conjecture was correct, as the deer was lying within a mile of us, and the ravens were making for its carcass. The animal had evidently only died the day before, but the birds had already made their breakfast upon him, and were now on their way to their evening meal. Though occasionally we had seen a pair of ravens soaring high overhead in that district, we never saw more than that number; but now there were some six or seven pairs already collected, where from we knew not. When a whale, or other large fish, is driven ashore on the coast of any of the northern islands, the ravens collect in amazing numbers, almost immediately coming from all directions and from all distances, led by the unerring instinct which tells them that a feast is to be found in a particular spot."

We should not wonder if the ancient augurs, who, no doubt, were consummate scoundrels, had an inkling of this extraordinary fact. If so, it would have been obviously easy, at the simple expenditure of a few pounds of bullock's liver, to get up any kind of ornithological vaticination. A dead ram, dexterously hidden from the sight of the spectators behind the Aventine, would speedily have brought birds enough to have justified any amount of warlike expeditions to the Peloponesus; while a defunct goat to the left of the Esquiline, would collect sooties by scores, and forebode the death of CA|sar. We own that formerly we ourselves were not altogether exempt from superstitious notions touching the mission of magpies; but henceforward we shall cease to consider them, even when they appear by threes, as bound up in some mysterious manner with our destiny, and shall rather attribute their apparition to the unexpected deposit of an egg.

But here we are at the shore, and not a mile from the margin of the moor. Ian, our fine fellow, look after the dogs; and now tell us, Donald, as we walk along, whether there are many poachers in this neighbourhood besides yourself? Atweel no, forbye muckle Sandy, that whiles taks a shot at a time.--We thought so. In these quiet braes there can be little systematic poaching. Now and then, to be sure, a hare is killed on a moonlight night among the cabbages behind the shieling; or a blackcock, too conspicuous of a misty morning on a corn-stook, pays the penalty of his depredations with his life. But these little acts of delinquency are of no earthly moment; and hard must be the heart of the proprietor who, for such petty doings, would have recourse to the vengeance of the law. But were you ever in Lochaber, Donald?--Oo ay, and Badenoch too.--And are you aware that in those districts where the deer are plenty, there exist, at the present day, gangs of organised poachers--fellows who follow no other calling--true Sons of the Mist, who prey upon the red-deer of the mountain without troubling the herds of the Sassenach; and who, though perfectly well known by head-mark to keeper and constable, are still permitted with impunity to continue their depredations from year to year?--I never heard tell of it.

No more have we. Notwithstanding Mr St John's usual accuracy and great means of information, he has given, in the fifth chapter of his book, an account of the Highland poachers which we cannot admit to be correct. In every thinly-populated country, where there is abundance of game, poaching must take place to a considerable extent, and indeed it is impossible to prevent it. You never can convince the people, that the statutory sin is a moral one; or that, in taking for their own sustenance that which avowedly belongs to no one, they are acting in opposition to a just or a salutary law. The question of _whence_ the game is taken, is a subtilty too nice for their comprehension. They see the stag running wild among the mountains, to-day on one laird's land, and away to-morrow to another's, bearing with him, as it were, his own transference of property; and they very naturally conclude that they have an abstract right to attempt his capture, if they can. The shepherd, who has thousands of acres under his sole superintendence, and whose dwelling is situated far away on the hills, at the head, perhaps, of some lonely stream, where no strange foot ever penetrates, is very often, it must be confessed, a bit of a poacher. Small blame to him. He has a gun--for the eagle, and the fox, and the raven, must be kept from the lambs; and if, when prowling about with his weapon, in search of vermin, he should chance to put up, as he is sure to do, a covey of grouse, and recollecting at the moment that there is nothing in the house beyond a peas-bannock and a diseased potato, should let fly, and bring down a gor-cock, who will venture to assert that, under such circumstances, he would hesitate to do the same? For every grouse so slaughtered, the shepherd frees the country from a brace of vermin more dangerous than fifty human poachers; for every day in the year they breakfast, dine, and sup exclusively upon game.

Let the shepherd, then, take his pittance from the midst of your plenty unmolested, if he does no worse. Why should his hut be searched by some big brute of a Yorkshire keeper, for fud or feather, when you know that, in all essentials, the man is as honest as steel--nay, that even in this matter of game, he is attentive to your interests, watches the young broods, protects the nests, and will tell you, when you come up the glen, where the finest coveys are to be found? It is, however, quite another thing if you detect him beginning to drive a contraband trade. Home consumption may be winked at--foreign exportation is most decidedly an unpardonable offence. The moment you find that he has entered into a league with the poulterer or the coachman, give warning to the offending MelibA"us, and let him seek a livelihood elsewhere. He is no longer safe. His instinct is depraved. He has ceased to be a creature of impulse, and has become the slave of a corrupted traffic. He is a noxious member of the Anti-game-law League.

This sort of poaching we believe to be common enough in Scotland, and there is also another kind more formidable, which, a few years ago, was rather extensively practised. Parties of four or five strong, able-bodied rascals, principally inmates of some of the smaller burghs in the north, used to make their way to another district of country, taking care, of course, that it was far enough from home to render any chance of identification almost a nullity, and would there begin to shoot, in absolute defiance of the keepers. Their method was not to diverge, but to traverse the country as nearly as possible in a straight line; so that very often they had left the lands of the most extensive proprietors even before the alarm was given. These men neither courted nor shunned a scuffle. They were confident in their strength of numbers, but never abused it; nor, so far as we recollect, have any fatal results attended this illegal practice. Be that as it may, the misdemeanour is a very serious one, and the perpetrators of it, if discovered, would be subjected to a severe punishment.

But Mr St John asserts the existence of a different class of poachers, whose exploits, if real, are a deep reproach to the vigilance of our respected friends the Sheriffs of Inverness, Ross, and Moray, as also to the Substitutes and their Fiscals. According to the accounts which have reached him, and which he seems implicitly to believe, there are, at this moment, gangs of caterans existing among the mountains, who follow no other occupation whatever than that of poaching. This they do not even affect to disguise. They make a good income by the sale of game, and by breaking dogs--they take the crown of the causeway in the country towns, where they are perfectly well known, and where the men give them "plenty of walking-room." On such occasions, they are accompanied with a couple of magnificent stag-hounds, and in this guise they venture undauntedly beneath the very nose of "ta Phuscal!" The Highland poacher, says Mr St John, "is a bold fearless fellow, shooting openly by daylight, taking his sport in the same manner as the laird, or the Sassenach who rents the ground." That is to say, this outlaw, who has a sheiling or a bothy on the laird's ground--for a man cannot live in the Highlands without a roof to shelter him--shoots as openly on these grounds as the laird himself, or the party who has rented them for the season! If this be the case, the breed of Highland proprietors--ay, and of Highland keepers--must have degenerated sadly during the last few years. The idea that any such character would be permitted by even the tamest Dumbiedykes to continue a permanent resident upon his lands, is perfectly preposterous. Game is not considered as a matter of such slight import in any part of the Highlands; neither is the arm of the law so weak, that it does not interfere with most rapid and salutary effect. No professed poacher, we aver, dare shoot openly upon the lands of the laird by whose tenure or sufferance he maintains a roof above his head; and it would be a libel upon those high-minded gentlemen to suppose, that they knowingly gave countenance to any such character, on the tacit understanding that their property should be spared while that of their neighbours was invaded. In less than a week after the information was given, the ruffian would be without any covering to his head, save that which would be afforded him by the arches of the Inverness or Fort-William jail.

Long tracts of country there are, comparatively unvisited--for example, the district around Lochs Ericht and Lydoch, and the deserts towards the head of the Spey. Yet, even there, the poacher is a marked man. The necessity of finding a market for the produce of his spoil, lays him open immediately to observation. If he chooses to burrow with the badger, he may be said to have deserted his trade. He cannot by any possibility, let him do what he will, elude the vigilance of the keeper; and, if known, he is within the clutches of the law without the necessity of immediate apprehension.

The truth of the matter is, that the poachers have no longer to deal directly with the lairds. The number of moors which are rented to Englishmen is now very great; and it is principally from these that the depredators reap their harvest. Accordingly, no pains are spared to impress the Sassenach with an exaggerated idea of the lawlessness of the Gael, in every thing relating to the game-laws and the statutes of the excise. The right of the people to poach is asserted as a kind of indefeasible servitude which the law winks at, because it cannot control; and we fear that, in some cases, the keepers, who care nothing for the new-comers, indirectly lend themselves to the delusion. The Englishman, on arriving at the moor which he has rented, is informed that he must either compromise with the poachers, or submit to the loss of his game--a kind of treaty which, we believe, is pretty often made in the manner related by Mr St John.

"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 aggrieved 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."

Utterly devoid of pluck must the said aggrieved party have been! Had he carried on the prosecution firmly, and given notice to the authorities of the audacious and impudent threat, with the names of the parties who conveyed it, not a trigger would have been drawn upon his ground, or a head of game destroyed. If the lessees of shooting-grounds are idiots enough to enter into any such compromise, they will of course find abundance of poachers to take advantage of it. Every shepherd on the property will take regularly to the hill; for by such an arrangement the market is virtually thrown open, and absolute impunity is promised. But we venture to say that there is not one instance on record where a Highland proprietor, of Scottish birth and breeding, has condescended to make any such terms--indeed, we should like to see the ruffian who would venture openly to propose them.

As to Mr St John's assertion, that "in Edinburgh there are numbers of men who work as porters, &c., during the winter, and poach in the Highlands during the autumn," we can assure him that he is labouring under a total delusion. A more respectable set of men in their way than the Edinburgh chairmen, is not to be found on the face of the civilised globe. Not a man of those excellent creatures, who periodically play at drafts at the corners of Hanover and Castle Street, ever went out in an illicit manner to the moors: nor shall we except from this vindication our old acquaintances at the Tron. Their worst vices are a strong predilection for snuff and whisky; otherwise they are nearly faultless, and they run beautifully in harness between the springy shafts of a sedan. If they ever set foot upon the heather, it is in the capacity of gillies, for which service they receive excellent wages, and capital hands they are for looking after the comforts of the dogs. Does Mr St John mean to insinuate that the twin stalwart tylers of the lodge Canongate Kilwinning--whose fine features are so similar that it is almost impossible to distinguish them--go out systematically in autumn to the Highlands for the purpose of poaching? Why, to our own knowledge, they are both most praiseworthy fathers of families, exemplary husbands, well to do in the world, and, were they to die to-morrow, there would not be a drop of black-cock's blood upon their souls. Like testimony could we bear in favour of a hundred others, whom you might trust with untold gold, not to speak of a wilderness of hares; but to any one who knows them, it is unnecessary to plead further in the cause of the caddies.

We fear, therefore, that in this particular of Highland poaching, Mr St John has been slightly humbugged; and we cannot help thinking, that in this work of mystification, his prime favourite and hero, Mr Ronald, has had no inconsiderable share. As to the feats of this handsome desperado, as related by himself, we accept them with a mental reservation. Notwithstanding the acknowledged fact that the Grants existed simultaneously with the sons of Anak, we doubt extremely whether any one individual of that clan, or of any other, could, more especially when in bed, and fatigued with a long day's exertion, overcome five sturdy assailants. If so, the fellow would make money by hiring a caravan, and exhibiting himself as a peripatetic Hercules: or, if such an exhibition should be deemed derogatory to a poaching outlaw, he might enter the pugilistic or wrestling ring, with the certainty of walking the course. The man who, without taking the trouble to rise out of bed, could put two big hulking Highlanders under him, breaking the ribs of one of them, and keeping them down with one knee, and who in that posture could successfully foil the attack of other three, is an ugly customer, and we venture to say that his match is not to be found within the four seas of Great Britain. The story of his tearing down the rafter, bestowing breakfast upon his opponents, and afterwards pitching the keeper deliberately into the burn, is so eminently apocryphal, that we cannot help wondering at Mr St John for honouring it with a place in his pages.

Did you ever see a badger, Scrip? That, we suspect, is the vestibule of one of them at which you are snuffing and scraping; but you have no chance of getting at him, for there he is lying deep beneath the rock; and, to say the truth, game as you are, we would rather keep you intact from the perils of his powerful jaw. He is, we agree with Mr St John, an ancient and respectable quadruped, by far too much maligned in this wicked age; and--were it for no other reason than the inimitable adaptation of his hair for shaving-brushes--we should sincerely regret his extinction in the British isles. We like the chivalry with which our author undertakes the defence of any libelled and persecuted animal, and in no instance is he more happy than in his oration in favour of the injured badger. Like Harry Bertram, he is not ashamed "of caring about a brock."

"Notwithstanding the persecutions and indignities that he is unjustly doomed to suffer, I maintain that he is far more respectable in his habits than we generally consider him to be. 'Dirty as a badger,' 'stinking as a badger,' are two sayings often repeated, but quite inapplicable to him. As far as we can learn of the domestic economy of this animal when in a state of nature, he is remarkable for his cleanliness--his extensive burrows are always kept perfectly clean, and free from all offensive smell; no filth is ever found about his abode; every thing likely to offend his olfactory nerves is carefully removed. I, once, in the north of Scotland, fell in with a perfect colony of badgers; they had taken up their abode in an unfrequented range of wooded rocks, and appeared to have been little interrupted in their possession of them. The footpaths to and from their numerous holes were beaten quite hard; and what is remarkable and worthy of note, they had different small pits dug at a certain distance from their abodes, which were evidently used as receptacles for all offensive filth; every other part of their colony was perfectly clean. A solitary badger's hole, which I once had dug out, during the winter season, presented a curious picture of his domestic and military arrangements--a hard and long job it was for two men to achieve, the passage here and there turned in a sharp angle round some projecting corners of rock, which he evidently makes use of when attacked, as points of defence, making a stand at any of these angles, where a dog could not scratch to enlarge the aperture, and fighting from behind his stone buttress. After tracing out a long winding passage, the workmen came to two branches in the hole, each leading to good-sized chambers: in one of these was stored a considerable quantity of dried grass, rolled up into balls as large as a man's fist, and evidently intended for food; in the other chamber there was a bed of soft dry grass and leaves--the sole inhabitant was a peculiarly large old dog-badger. Besides coarse grasses, their food consists of various roots; amongst others, I have frequently found about their hole the bulb of the common wild blue hyacinth. Fruit of all kinds and esculent vegetables form his repast, and I fear that he must plead guilty to devouring any small animal that may come in his way, alive or dead; though not being adapted for the chase, or even for any very skilful strategy of war, I do not suppose that he can do much in catching an unwounded bird or beast. Eggs are his delight, and a partridge's nest with seventeen or eighteen eggs must afford him a fine meal, particularly if he can surprise and kill the hen-bird also; snails and worms which he finds above ground during his nocturnal rambles, are likewise included in his bill of fare. I was one summer evening walking home from fishing in Loch Ness, and having occasion to fasten up some part of my tackle, and also expecting to meet my keeper, I sat down on the shore of the loch. I remained some time, enjoying the lovely prospect: the perfectly clear and unruffled loch lay before me, reflecting the northern shore in its quiet water. The opposite banks consisted, in some parts, of bright greensward, sloping to the water's edge, and studded with some of the most beautiful birch-trees in Scotland; several of the trees spreading out like the oak, and with their ragged and ancient-looking bark resembling the cork-tree of Spain--others drooping and weeping over the edge of the water in the most lady-like and elegant manner. Parts of the loch were edged in by old lichen-covered rocks; while farther on a magnificent scaur of red stone rose perpendicularly from the water's edge to a very great height. So clearly was every object on the opposite shore reflected in the lake below, that it was difficult, nay impossible, to distinguish where the water ended and the land commenced--the shadow from the reality. The sun was already set, but its rays still illuminated the sky. It is said that from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step;--and I was just then startled from my reverie by a kind of grunt close to me, and the apparition of a small waddling grey animal, who was busily employed in hunting about the grass and stones at the edge of the loch; presently another, and another, appeared in a little grassy glade which ran down to the water's edge, till at last I saw seven of them busily at work within a few yards of me, all coming from one direction. It at first struck me that they were some farmer's pigs taking a distant ramble, but I shortly saw that they were badgers, come from their fastnesses rather earlier than usual, tempted by the quiet evening, and by a heavy summer shower that was just over, and which had brought out an infinity of large black snails and worms, on which the badgers were feeding with good appetite. As I was dressed in grey and sitting on a grey rock, they did not see me, but waddled about, sometimes close to me; only now and then as they crossed my track they showed a slight uneasiness, smelling the ground, and grunting gently. Presently a very large one, which I took to be the mother of the rest, stood motionless for a moment listening with great attention, and then giving a loud grunt, which seemed perfectly understood by the others, she scuttled away, followed by the whole lot. I was soon joined by my attendant, whose approach they had heard long before my less acute ears gave me warning of his coming. In trapping other vermin in these woods, we constantly caught badgers--sometimes several were found in the traps; I always regretted this, as my keeper was most unwilling to spare their lives, and I fancy seldom did so. His arguments were tolerably cogent, I must confess. When I tried to persuade him that they were quite harmless, he answered me by asking--'Then why, sir, have they got such teeth, if they don't live, like a dog or fox, on flesh?--and why do they get caught so often in traps baited with rabbits?' I could not but admit that they had most carnivorous-looking teeth, and well adapted to act on the offensive as well as defensive, or to crunch the bones of any young hare, rabbit, or pheasant that came in their way."

But now we have reached the moors, and for the next few hours we shall follow out the Wild Sports for ourselves. Ian, let loose the dogs.

Oh, pleasant--pleasant and cool are the waters of the mountain well! It is now past noonday, and we shall call a halt for a while. Donald, let us see what is in that bag. Twelve brace and a half of grouse, three blackcock, a leash of snipes, two ditto of golden plovers, three hares, and the mallard that we raised from the rushes. Quite enough, we think, for any rational sportsman's recreation, howbeit we have a few hours yet before us. Somewhere, we think, in the other bag, there should be a cold fowl, or some such kickshaw, with, if we mistake not, a vision of beef, and a certain pewter flask.--Thank you. Now, let us all down by the side of the spring, and to luncheon with what appetite we may.

Are there any deer on these hills, Ian? But seldom. Occasionally a straggler may come over from one of the upper forests, but there are too many sheep about; and the deer, though they will herd sometimes with black cattle, have a rooted antipathy to the others. No sight is finer than that of a stag surrounded by his hinds; but it is late in the year that the spectacle becomes most imposing, and we would have given something to have been present with Mr St John on the following occasion:--

"The red deer had just commenced what is called by the Highlanders roaring, _i. e._ uttering their loud cries of defiance to rival stags, and of warning to their rival mistresses.

"There had been seen, and reported to me, a particularly large and fine antlered stag, whose branching honours I wished to transfer from the mountain side to the walls of my own hall. Donald and myself accordingly, one fine morning, early in October, started before daybreak for a distant part of the mountain, where we expected to find him; and we resolved to pass the night at a shepherd's house far up in the hills, if we found that our chase led us too far from home to return the same evening.

"Long was our walk that day before we saw horn or hoof; many a likely burn and corrie did we search in vain. The shepherds had been scouring the hills the day before for their sheep, to divide those which were to winter in the low ground from those which were to remain on the hills. However, the day was fine and frosty, and we were in the midst of some of the most magnificent scenery in Scotland; so that I, at least, was not much distressed at our want of luck. Poor Donald, who had not the same enjoyment in the beauty of the scene, unless it were enlivened by a herd of deer here and there, began to grumble and lament our hard fate; particularly as towards evening wild masses of cloud began to sweep up the glens and along the sides of the mountain, and every now and then a storm of cold rain and sleet added to the discomfort of our position. There was, however, something so very desolate and wild in the scene and the day, that, wrapt in my plaid, I stalked slowly on, enjoying the whole thing as much as if the elements had been in better temper, and the Goddess of Hunting propitious.

"We came in the afternoon to a rocky burn, along the course of which was our line of march. To the left rose an interminable-looking mountain, over the sides of which was scattered a wilderness of grey rock and stone, sometimes forming immense precipices, and in other places degenerating into large tracts of loose and water-worn grey shingle, apparently collected and heaped together by the winter floods. Great masses of rock were scattered about, resting on their angles, and looking as if the wind, which was blowing a perfect gale, would hurl them down on us.

"Amongst all this dreary waste of rock and stone, there were large patches of bright green pasture, and rushes on the level spots, formed by the damming up of the springs and mountain streams.

"Stretching away to our right was a great expanse of brown heather and swampy ground, dotted with innumerable pools of black-looking water. The horizon on every side was shut out by the approaching masses of rain and drift. The clouds closed round us, and the rain began to fall in straight hard torrents; at the same time, however, completely allaying the wind.

"'Well, well,' said Donald, 'I just dinna ken what to do.' Even I began to think that we might as well have remained at home; but, putting the best face on the matter, we got under a projecting bank of the burn, and took out our provision of oatcake and cold grouse, and having demolished that, and made a considerable vacuum in the whisky flask, I lit my cigar, and meditated on the vanity of human pursuits in general, and of deer-stalking in particular, while dreamy visions of balls, operas, and the last pair of blue eyes that I had sworn everlasting allegiance to, passed before me.

"Donald was employed in the more useful employment of bobbing for burn trout with a line and hook he had produced out of his bonnet--that wonderful blue bonnet, which, like the bag in the fairy tale, contains any thing and every thing which is required at a moment's notice. His bait was the worms which in a somewhat sulky mood he kicked out of their damp homes about the edge of the burn. Presently the ring-ousel began to whistle on the hill-side, and the cock-grouse to crow in the valley below us. Roused by these omens of better weather, I looked out from our shelter and saw the face of the sun struggling to show itself through the masses of cloud, while the rain fell in larger but more scattered drops. In a quarter of an hour the clouds were rapidly disappearing, and the face of the hill as quickly opening to our view. We remained under shelter a few minutes longer, when suddenly, as if by magic, or like the lifting of the curtain at a theatre, the whole hill was perfectly clear from clouds, and looked more bright and splendidly beautiful than any thing I had ever seen. No symptoms were left of the rain, excepting the drops on the heather, which shone like diamonds in the evening sun. The masses of rock came out in every degree of light and shade, from dazzling white to the darkest purple, streaked here and there with the overpourings of the swollen rills and springs, which danced and leapt from rock to rock, and from crag to crag, looking like streams of silver.

"'How beautiful!' was both my inward and outward exclamation. 'Deed it's not just so dour as it was,' said Donald; 'but, the Lord guide us! look at yon,' he continued, fixing his eye on a distant slope, at the same time slowly winding up his line and pouching his trout, of which he had caught a goodly number. 'Tak your perspective, sir, and look there,' he added, pointing with his chin. I accordingly took my perspective, as he always called my pocket-telescope, and saw a long line of deer winding from amongst the broken granite in single file down towards us. They kept advancing one after the other, and had a most singular appearance as their line followed the undulations of the ground. They came slowly on, to the number of more than sixty (all hinds, not a horn amongst them), till they arrived at a piece of table-land four or five hundred yards from us, when they spread about to feed, occasionally shaking off the raindrops from their hides, much in the same manner as a dog does on coming out of the water.

"'They are no that canny,' said Donald. '_Nous verrons_,' said I. 'What's your wull?' was his answer; 'I'm no understanding Latin, though my wife has a cousin who is a placed minister.' 'Why, Donald, I meant to say that we shall soon see whether they are canny or not: a rifle-ball is a sure remedy for all witchcraft.' Certainly there was something rather startling in the way they all suddenly appeared as it were from the bowels of the mountain, and the deliberate, unconcerned manner in which they set to work feeding like so many tame cattle.

"We had but a short distance to stalk. I kept the course of a small stream which led through the middle of the herd; Donald followed me with my gun. We crept up till we reckoned that we must be within an easy shot, and then, looking most cautiously through the crevices and cuts in the bank, I saw that we were in the very centre of the herd: many of the deer were within twenty or thirty yards, and all feeding quietly and unconscious of any danger. Amongst the nearest to me was a remarkably large hind, which we had before observed as being the leader and biggest of the herd, I made a sign to Donald that I would shoot her, and left him to take what he liked of the flock after I fired.

"Taking a deliberate and cool aim at her shoulder, I pulled the trigger; but, alas! the wet had got between the cap and nipple-end. All that followed was a harmless snap: the deer heard it, and, starting from their food, rushed together in a confused heap, as if to give Donald a fair chance at the entire flock, a kind of shot he rather rejoiced in. Before I could get a dry cap on my gun, snap, snap, went both his barrels; and when I looked up, it was but to see the whole herd quietly trotting up the hill, out of shot, but apparently not very much frightened, as they had not seen us, or found out exactly where the sound came from. 'We are just twa fules, begging your honour's pardon, and only fit to weave hose by the ingle,' said Donald. I could not contradict him. The mischief was done; so we had nothing for it but to wipe out our guns as well as we could, and proceed on our wandering. We followed the probable line of the deers' march, and before night saw them in a distant valley feeding again quite unconcernedly.

"'Hark! what is that?' said I, as a hollow roar like an angry bull was heard not far from us. 'Kep down, kep down,' said Donald, suiting the action to the word, and pressing me down with his hand; 'it's just a big staig.' All the hinds looked up, and, following the direction of their heads, we saw an immense hart coming over the brow of the hill three hundred yards from us. He might easily have seen us, but seemed too intent on the hinds to think of any thing else. On the height of the hill he halted, and, stretching out his neck and lowering his head, bellowed again. He then rushed down the hill like a mad beast: when half-way down he was answered from a distance by another stag. He instantly halted, and, looking in that direction, roared repeatedly, while we could see in the evening air, which had become cold and frosty, his breath coming out of his nostrils like smoke. Presently he was answered by another and another stag, and the whole distance seemed alive with them. A more unearthly noise I never heard, as it echoed and re-echoed through the rocky glens that surrounded us.

"The setting sun threw a strong light on the first comer, casting a kind of yellow glare on his horns and head, while his body was in deep shade, giving him a most singular appearance, particularly when combined with his hoarse and strange bellowing. As the evening closed in, their cries became almost incessant, while here and there we heard the clash of horns as two rival stags met and fought a few rounds together. None, however, seemed inclined to try their strength with the large hart who had first appeared. The last time we saw him, in the gloom of the evening, he was rolling in a small pool of water, with several of the hinds standing quietly round him; while the smaller stags kept passing to and fro near the hinds, but afraid to approach too close to their watchful rival, who was always ready to jump up and dash at any of them who ventured within a certain distance of his seraglio. 'Donald,' I whispered, 'I would not have lost this sight for a hundred pounds.' 'Deed no, its grand,' said he. 'In all my travels on the hill I never saw the like.' Indeed it is very seldom that chances combine to enable a deer-stalker to quietly look on at such a strange meeting of deer as we had witnessed that evening. But night was coming on, and though the moon was clear and full, we did not like to start off for the shepherd's house, through the swamps and swollen burns among which we should have had to pass; nor did we forget that our road would be through the valley where all this congregation of deer were. So after consulting, we turned off to leeward to bivouac amongst the rocks at the back of the hill, at a sufficient distance from the deer not to disturb them by our necessary occupation of cooking the trout, which our evening meal was to consist of. Having hunted out some of the driest of the fir-roots which were in abundance near us, we soon made a bright fire out of view of the deer, and, after eating some fish, and drying our clothes pretty well, we found a snug corner in the rocks, where, wrapped up in our plaids and covered with heather, we arranged ourselves to sleep.

"Several times during the night I got up and listened to the wild bellowing of the deer: sometimes it sounded close to us, and at other times far away. To an unaccustomed ear it might easily have passed for the roaring of a host of much more dangerous wild beasts, so loud and hollow did it sound. I awoke in the morning cold and stiff, but soon put my blood into circulation by running two or three times up and down a steep bit of the hill. As for Donald, he shook himself, took a pinch of snuff, and was all right. The sun was not yet above the horizon, though the tops of the mountains to the west were already brightly gilt by its rays, and the grouse-cocks were answering each other in every direction."

A graphic and most true description! The same gathering of the deer, but on a far larger scale, may be seen in the glens near the centre of Sutherland, hard by the banks of Loch Naver. Many hundreds of them congregate there together at the bleak season of their love; and the bellowing of the stags may be heard miles off among the solitude of the mountain. Nor is it altogether safe at that time to cross their path. The hart--a dangerous brute whenever brought to bay--then appears to lose all trace of his customary timidity, and will advance against the intruder, be he who he may, with levelled antler and stamping hoof, as becomes the acknowledged leader, bashaw, and champion of the herd. Also among the Coolin hills, perhaps the wildest of all our Highland scenery, where the dark rain-clouds of the Atlantic stretch from peak to peak of the jagged heights--where the ghostlike silence strikes you with unwonted awe, and the echo of your own footfall rings startlingly on the ear from the metallic cliffs of Hyperstein.

What is it, Ian? As we live, Orleans is pointing in yon correi, and Bordeaux backing him like a Trojan. Soho, Tours! Now for it. Black game, we rather think. Well roaded, dogs! Bang! An old cock. Ian, you may pick him up.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] _Wild Sports and Natural History of the Highlands._ From the Journals of CHARLES ST JOHN, Esq. Murray. London: 1846.

LETTERS AND IMPRESSIONS FROM PARIS.[2]