and the corby perched close by, eager to
pick out the golden and beautiful eyes.

By too severe a fate,
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And welt'ring in his blood;
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.

Just as he passed away, there darted out
from the side of the rock a ghastly
apparition, glaring at us with a face covered
with blood, and looking as if it meant
murder. It was only a sheep. Yet for the
moment it amazed us, for it seemed like
the ghost of a sheep, horrid and forbidding.
Alas! though it glared in one direction, it
could not see; its poor gentle eyes had just
been destroyed, the red blood from them
was coursing down its cheeks; and it was
staggering, drunken with the pain. It was
the accursed deed of the hoody, or the raven,
ever on the watch for the unwary, ready in
a moment to dart down on the sleeping
lamb or the rolling sheep, and make a meal
of its eyes; then, with a devilish chuckle,
to track the blind and tottering victim this
way and that, as it feels its feeble way
among the heights, until, standing on the
edge of some high rock, it can be startled,
with a wild beat of wings and a fiendish
shriek, right down the fatal precipice to
the rocks beneath; there the murderer,
while a dozen other of his kind gather
around him in carnival, plunges his reeking
beak into the victim's heart.

Though we slew a raven and half a dozen
corbies, having from that night sworn a
savage vendetta against the murderous
kind, no eagle died by our hand—neither
eagle, nor red deer, nor hooper, nor salmon.
So far, the search in Uist for the hunter's
badge was a wretched failure, ending only
in humiliation and despair. But we have
at least taken one step in the right direction;
for we can avow, by Diana and by Nimrod,
or (if the reader like it better) by the less
classic shade of Colonel Hawker, that we
killed a seal.

It was up among the fjörds of Maddy that
the seals began to attract our attention.
They were floating about in considerable
numbers, coming quite close to the yacht
at times, but always keeping well aloof
whenever there was the slightest smell of
powder. So one day the punt was got ready,
Big Benjamin and the Russian rifle were
put on board, and the Wanderer and his
henchman started off up the fjörds.

There was a stiff breeze from the east,
and the little boat shot swiftly with the
lugsail through the inland waters. Every
now and then, the head of a seal popped up
out of gun-shot, floated for some minutes
exactly like an oscillating leather bottle,
and then was drawn out of sight: still like
a bottle, with the neck (or snout) upwards.
The creeks were full of female eider and
gool ducks, each female followed by five or
six fluffs of down, in various stages of
development; on one headland, which
smelt as strongly of stale fish as a herring-boat,
a whole covey of cormorants, sitting
bolt upright, like parsons in black coats and
dingy neckcloths, were basking in the
sunlight. The sea-larks twittered everywhere,
the oyster-catchers whistled, the curlews
screamed; and the gulls, scattered all
around as thick as snow-flakes, completed
the chorus with their constant cries.

There was a rocky point, well up the
principal fjörd, which we had ascertained
to be a constant resort of the seals, and on
which, only the day before, an eye-witness
had seen no less than forty, old and young,
taking their noonday siesta all at once.
Toward this point we ran with the fresh
breeze, not firing a shot on the passage, but
watching warily ahead; and at last, when
in full view of the rocks and about a
quarter of a mile distant, we hauled down
the lugsail and lay to, reconnoitring.
Hamish Shaw's keen eye discovered seals
at once, and the telescope soon showed
that he was right. There they were,
three or four in number, sunning themselves
snugly on the very outermost rocks of the
promontory, ready on the slightest alarm
to slip like eels into the water. What was
to be done? Shooting them from the
boat was impossible; a nearer approach on
the water would soon scatter them to the
deeps. However, by careful stalking, a
good shot might be had from the land.
About a hundred yards behind rise knolls
of deep grass, intermingled with great
boulders, and among these there must be
many a capital point of vantage. Luckily,
the knolls were well to leeward of the seals,
and there was no chance of the wind playing
traitor. Be it noted, that a seal, though
not particularly sharp-sighted, has as fine
a nose as a stag for any scent—such as
that exuded (as Dean Swift vowed and as
delicate animals know) by the murderous
monster, Man.

Leaving Hamish in charge of the punt,
the Wanderer shouldered the rifle and
made a long detour inland, not venturing
to turn his face until he was well to
leeward of his quarry. Then, strapping the
rifle on his back in backwoodsman fashion,