w. But Ian Anderson put him under Donald's care, with strict
injunctions to look well after him.

"Now, Tonal', see that ye don't draw together an' git ta-alkin' so as to
forget what ye're about. Keep him at the right distance away from ye,
an' as much in line as ye can."

"Oo, ay," returned ragged head, in a tone that meant, when translated
into familiar English, "Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs!"

In a sequestered dell on the slope of the hills, a lordly stag and
several hinds were enjoying themselves that morning among the bracken
and bright mosses, partially screened from the sun by the over-arching
boughs of birch and hazel, and solaced by the tinkling music of a
neighbouring rill. Thick underwood concealed the dell on all sides;
grey lichen-covered boulders surrounded it; no sound disturbed it save
the faint cry of the plover and curlew on the distant shore, or the flap
of a hawk's wing as it soared overhead. Altogether it looked like a
safe and sure retreat, but it did not prove to be so.

Mingled with the plaintive cries of the wild fowl, there came a faint--
barely perceptible--sound of the human voice. The stag pricked up his
ears, and raised his antlered head. It was by no means a new sound to
him. The shepherd's voice calling to his collie on the mountain-side
was a familiar sound, that experience had taught him boded no evil. The
converse of friends as they plodded along the roads or foot-paths that
often skirted his lairs, had a tone of innocence about it which only
induced caution--not alarm. But there was nothing of this in the sounds
that now met his ears. He raised himself higher, opened his nostrils
wider, sniffed the tainted air, and then, turning his graceful head,
made some remark--we presume, though we cannot be positive on this
point--to his wives.

These, meek and gentle--as females usually are, or ought to be--turned
their soft inquiring gaze on their lord. Thus they stood, as if
spell-bound, while the sounds slowly but steadily increased in volume
and approached their retreat. Presently a shoulder of the mountain was
turned by the drivers, and their discordant voices came down on the
gentle breeze with unmistakable significance.

We regret being unable to report exactly what the stag then said to his
wives, but the result was that the entire family bounded from their
retreat, and, in the hurry and alarm of the moment, scattered along
various glades, all of which, ho