the moors (of course to decimate now means
almost to extirpate), and the crofters had increased the pleasures of
stalking by making the stags excessively shy, thus adding to the arduous
enjoyment of the true sportsman.

To Castle Skrae, being such as we have described, Lady Bude and Merton
returned from their sentimental prowl. They found Miss Macrae, in a very
short skirt of the Macrae tartan, trying to teach Mr. Blake to play ping-
pong in the great hall.

We must describe the young lady, though her charms outdo the powers of
the vehicle of prose. She was tall, slim, and graceful, light of foot as
a deer on the corrie. Her hair was black, save when the sun shone on it
and revealed strands of golden brown; it was simply arrayed, and knotted
on the whitest and shapeliest neck in Christendom. Her eyebrows were
dark, her eyes large and lucid,

The greyest of things blue,
The bluest of things grey.

Her complexion was of a clear pallor, like the white rose beloved by her
ancestors; her features were all but classic, with the charm of romance;
but what made her unique was her mouth. It was faintly upturned at the
corners, as in archaic Greek art; she had, in the slightest and most
gracious degree, what Logan, describing her once, called 'the AEginetan
grin.' This gave her an air peculiarly gay and winsome, brilliant,
joyous, and alert. In brief, to use Chaucer's phrase,

She was as wincy as a wanton colt,
Sweet as a flower, and upright as a bolt.

She was the girl who was teaching the poet the elements of ping-pong. The
poet usually missed the ball, for he was averse to and unapt for anything
requiring quickness of eye and dexterity of hand. On a seat lay open a
volume of the _Poetry of the Celtic Renascence_, which Blake had been
reading to Miss Macrae till she used the vulgar phrase 'footle,' and
invited him to be educated in ping-pong. Of these circumstances she
cheerfully informed the new-comers, adding that Lord Bude had returned
happy, having photographed a wild cat in its lair.

'Did he shoot it?' asked Blake.

'No. He's a sportsman!' said Miss Macrae.

'That is why I supposed he must have shot the cat,' answered Blake.

'What is Gaelic for a wild cat, Blake?' asked Merton unkindly.

Like other modern Celtic poets Mr. Blake was entirely ignorant of the
melodious language of his ancestors, though it had often been stated in
the literary papers that he was 'going to begin' to take l