years to the "Land of the Mountain and the Flood," I could not help, even yet, admiring it. The wide hearth was garnished with almost every description of cake and bannock, both of oat and barley meal, which she had to turn every instant that her atten

tion could be spared from about a dozen and a half of eggs which were roasting in a small pyramid of ashes; while beside the teakettle, goodly to view, two fine errocks were broiling on a brandert, and were momentarily the cause of her assiduities. All around her were grouped nine children, who had evidently made their way into this wide and weary world by the most summary process possible in nature, and who in every grade of dress and undress, from full togs to utter nudity, were clamouring (in to me not unknown, but unintelligible sounds) for her usual attentions. "To each and all" of these the kicks and cuffs which she contrived to deliver were absolutely marvellous considering her other avocations.

Had the latter, however, been attended with no happier results than these aforesaid kicks and thumps, we should have stood but small chance of breakfast, especially as by way of interlude she had occasionally to enforce the services of the six sheep dogs against an enormous black buck goat, with a beard which the chief barber of the Shah of Persia might have been proud to have had under his fostering care; to say nothing of some half dozen hens, who, pertinaciously asserting their wonted rights in the domicile, put the cakes and ban

* Pullets.

nocks in perpetual jeopardy, and shared her ubiquitous and guardian indignation. Amidst this hurricane of operations, while I paused to regard her with unfeigned amusement, she found time to bid me welcome, wiped down a chair for me with her apron, and with 66 one fell swoop" of her brawny arm upsetting three or four of her "sweet little ones," and kicking them into all corners out of the way, made room for me at the fire. Having divested myself of my upper crust, and applied the oil bag to my gun where the rain had penetrated, I beset myself to dry a few spots on my own precious person which were similarly damaged. An excellent breakfast, however, (good loaf bread not being wanted,) soon gave me other employment, and placing myself "right fornint" (as Pat says) my comrade, we set-to with a zest which none but those who engage in such pursuits experience.

I must do the gude wife the justice to say that the table cloth was as white as snow, and my pal quietly giving me the office that he had washed all the crockery, &c. &c. in warm water himself (a most laudable action), our dejeunary happiness seemed to be complete.

The gude wife, after giving a look or two of great self-complacency at our comforts, the result of her multifarious assiduity, betook herself to milk the kye: the little overthrown naked Picts had rallied about the paternal hearth, and we were throng at the "affairs of the mouth," when "bolt upright, and ready to fight," as

A close gridiron.

the old song goes, entered the black-bearded Potentate before mentioned, who, it would seem, relished not our intrusion, and had determined, as far as in him lay, to dispossess us. My back was to him as he entered in the thick peatreek, which you might literally almost have cut with a knife; and luckily for me, though turned of forty, my hair still retains its original hue-for he passed me with wonderful velocity, and made his "premier coup d'assaut"—and a right well-meant one it was--at the shining bald crown and silvery locks of my pal, which were held downwards at this moment, in the act of taking off the second leg and wing of a pullet, and which "shone like a meteor in this smoky and troubled air."

There is, as said him "of the Hundred Thrones," but one step between sublimity and its opposite. Now, as all danger is more or less sublime, I was in momentary seriousness about to succour my companion, when, with an activity worthy of his most juvenile years, he sprang back à la Grimaldi into a corner of the hut, and, simultaneously grasping his wooden seat by the uppermost bar, held the fell intruder resolutely at point of chair, his countenance resolving itself into an expression so ludicrously consonant to the absurdity of his situation, that away went every other feeling, idea, or sensation on my part, into the most unsubduable laughter. But "il_ris bien, qu'il ris dernier," says the French proverb, which I was fated to prove; for, finding he could not make any impression on the "lad with the silvery poll," and probably having his spleen further moved by my ill-timed up

roariousness, he pirouetted round with the activity of a crack danseuse, and made a puck at me, which had it taken effect, all dissolved with laughter as I was, would have saved you, Sir, the trouble of determining whether I shall perish in obscurity, or be honored in your pages. Although, old soldier as I am, I had not made the necessary calculation of a retreat, I was not long in availing myself of that by the door, and fled ingloriously, almost suffocated with laughter, which was loudly chorused by the little naked Picts, and which brought the efficient aid of the gude wife to our deliverance. În she came, attended by a great shambling Highland damsel, whose naked red legs might have rivalled the most celebrated of the far-famed heifers of Mullingar, and who had been so scared by the unwonted dignity of the new arrival, that on my entry she had made herself scarce. The sight of my pal, however, undergoing such a ludicrous blockade, overcame her timidity, for she broke into a guffaw, which completely drowned my cachination, and which was soon put an end to, however, by the gude wife—one of the readiest-handed women it has been my lot to witness-who bestowed a dunt between her shoulders, which operated like a Laputan flapper in bringing her to her senses; when, seizing between them this "rude familiar," they released my comrade from "durance vile," and enabled us to resume our meal.

Irrepressible laughter still overpowered me, the more especially as my pal was necessitated to wipe his forehead more than once, besides giving sundry other indi

cations of the rude encounter which he had sustained. But as I saw it was getting beyond a joke in his estimation, and having properly a real respect for him, I resolutely gulped it down, and we finished our breakfast.-Being aware of his own respectable habits, and the high establishment he had belonged to since a boy, I could not help asking him how he could manage to rest in such quarters, as the cows were barely separated from us by a half mud wall, yclept a hallan; and through the dense smoke I could only discern a small den, which was almost entirely occupied by two huge box bedsteads, black and all black with that vapour, and without any window that I could perceive. He informed me that he had tried it once or twice, but had come this morning from a farm house of a superior description about four miles off, where we were to pass the night, and where we should find matters sufficiently comfortable to ensure rest and refreshment. This was cheering intelligence, as (though the least squeamish of men) I had more. than once, on remote grousing expeditions, proved the total unhingement which a man undergoes from a night's purgatory in such a den of smoke and fleas, and which nearly incapacitates him from doing his work on the ensuing day.

Should any brother sportsman, in a peregrination to this region of fish and fowl, have any idea that he may be subjected to such a chance, Í humbly recommend him to provide himself with a good buffalo skin, when, by loosening all ligatures, and turning a chair with its top on the ground, it will present an inclined

plane, on which, aided by a great coat for a pillow, he may rest more soundly, and awaken more refreshed, than by committing his unfortunate corpus to the indescribable pandemonium of a Highland box bedstead. This arrangement, with the aid of a little straw or heather, forms no contemptible "shake down," and should be kept in mind by those who visit the remote parts of "Caledonia Oh!"

Being now well refreshed, we girded our loins, and prepared to set forth, first loading our guns for the chance of any birds (black game solely) being at feed on the inclosures through which we were to pass, to the spot where they generally commenced operations..

And now, though it may subject me to the charge of egotism, which, however, I deny and deprecate, I cannot help craving leave to mention the kind of gun which we used for this sport. Mine was a percussion, twelve guage, two feet eight in length, and weighing nine pounds and a quarter, carrying with all ease to the shoulder three drachms and half of powder and two ounces of shot. It was made purposely for this kind of shooting-viz, duck, roe-deer, and black gameby Mr. Ancell, of Perth, whose emporium for all matters relating to the stream and the field (as connected with the trigger) is too well known to all who have passed through the fair city to need any comment. To those who may pass through it hereafter, I can only say, if they are sportsmen, they will do well to look in.-The keeper's was a flint nearly similar.

I could not help noticing that the last-named personage, minutely inspected and wiped the

glasses of a small but excellent telescope, remarking to me that our chance of success would as much depend upon that tube as upon those we had been just charging. I had no time to demand an explanation then, as he was all stir and preparation; so calling upon his men (having just put our lips to a glass out of the gude wife's whiskey bottle, to have refused which would have been an unpardonable affront), we started for the day's work. It was not yet day-light, but it was just beginning to break, and I saw that we were attended by two lathy fellows, in neither of whom could I recognise my previous guide the truth of whose phophecy, however, was already demonstrated, for it had ceased to rain, or more technically speaking, mist. There were two dogs, a setter and a pointer, on the couples, and a Newfoundland retriever direct from St. John's, of whose capabilities I had heard no little, and who, after a most significant wag of his tail, placed himself directly behind the keeper's feet. We were each provided with a small spirit flask and a biscuit: but I, though a QUARTOGENARIAN, being the youngest of the two by ten years, had acquired my habits before it was necessary for every man to go through the country like a day "will o' the wisp," with a light in his mouth, and as my pal, though a true Scot, "snuffs none," there was no baccy" in company, at which I make no doubt, as times go, many good men and true will marvel exceed ingly.

Our progress for about three

quarters of a mile lay through some large rough inclosures, mostly arable, at the end of which, but in a different direction, we again entered on the moor which had been the scene of my morning pilgrimage.

Ever since I had left the high road, the ground had been gradually, though almost insensibly, rising; and as day, step by step, disclosed our situation, I found that the moor extended about five miles, bounded on all sides but one that joining the Grampians-by arable inclosures, on which the black game feed. On the side to the mountain about three miles distant, the Grampians rose abruptly: in fact, we were on what may be termed the first rise. The telescope was now drawn out, and we were, dogs and all, ordered to keep ourselves stowed away behind a stone dyke or wall, while the keeper, taking off his hat, and creeping carefully behind an old fayle dyke (a bank of sods turned up for a fence), proceeded to reconnoitre all the stubble and new laid grass fields, on which at this time of year are assembled the produce of all the neighbouring moor-lands, as far as black game are concerned, for the morning feed.-While he was thus engaged, I could not help, long accustomed as I am to the majestic scenery of this district, admiring with all my soul the splendour of the prospect which with every fresh impulse of the "God of day" broke upon the view. Alas! I am unable to do it justice: it would have required the powers of your ultra-gifted contributor, GILBERT FORESTER, to communicate what I