Cauldkail Castle, Lord GABERLUNZIE's place, which had been rented by
a man who made a fortune in patent corkscrews. The house was pretty
nearly empty, as everyone had gone south for the Leger, so it fell to
my lot to go out under the orders of the head stalker. He was a man
of six foot three, he walked like that giant of iron, TALUS his name
was, I think, who used to perambulate the shores of Crete, an early
mythical coast-guard. HUGH's step on the mountain was like that of the
red deer, and he had an eye like the eagle's of his native wastes.

[Illustration: "I had been bitten by an Adder."]

It was not pleasant, marching beside HUGH, and I was often anxious
to sit down and admire the scenery, if he would have let me. I
had no rifle of my own, but one was lent me, with all the latest
improvements, confound them! Well, we staggered through marshes, under
a blinding sun, and clambered up cliffs, and sneaked in the beds of
burns, and crawled through bogs on our stomachs. My only intervals
of repose were when HUGH lay down on his back, and explored the
surrounding regions with his field-glass. Even then I was not allowed
to smoke, and while I was baked to a blister with the sun, I was wet
through with black peat water. Never a deer could we see, or could
HUGH see, rather, for I am short-sighted, and cannot tell a stag from
a bracken bush.

At last HUGH, who was crawling some yards ahead, in an uninteresting
plain, broken by a few low round hillocks, beckoned to me to come on.
I writhed up to him, where he lay on the side of one of those mounds,
when he put the rifle in my hand, whispering "Shoot!"

"Shoot what?" said I, for my head was not yet above the crest of the