“They’re too far off, aren’t they?” Lionel whispered—­and, despite all his sworn resolves to keep calm, he felt his heart going as if it would choke him.

“They’re lying down now,” Roderick said, with professional coolness, “and they’re right out in the open; it is no use at all trying to get near them until they get up in the afternoon and begin to feed again, and then maybe they will feed over the shoulder yonder.  No use at all,” said he; but just at this moment his quick eye caught sight of something else that had just appeared on the edge of one of the lower slopes, and the expression of his face instantly changed—­into something like alarm.  “Bless me, look at that now!”

Lionel slowly and cautiously turned his head; and then, quite clearly, he could see a small company of seven or eight stags that had come along from quite a different direction.  They paused at the crest of the slope, looking all about them.

“Was ever anything so mischievous?” Roderick exclaimed, in smothered vexation.  “If they come over this way they will get our wind; and then it is good-bye to all of them.  And we cannot get away neither—­well, well, was there ever the like now?  There is only the one chance—­mebbe they will go along to the others, and keep with them till they begin feeding in the afternoon.  Indeed, now, it is a terrible peety if we are to miss such a chance—­and not a hind anywhere to be on the watch!”

Happily, however, Roderick’s immediate fears were soon dispelled.  The new-comers slowly descended the slope; then they bore up the valley again; and after walking about awhile, they followed the example of the rest of the herd and lay down on the heather.

“Ay, ay, that is better now,” Roderick said, with much satisfaction.  “That is ferry well now.  And since there is nothing to be done till the whole of them get up to feed in the afternoon, we will chist creep aweh into a peat-hag and wait there, and you can have your lunch, sir.”

So there was another crawling performance down from this exposed height; and eventually the small party managed to hide themselves in a black and moist peat-hag, where their extremely frugal repast was produced.

“But look here, Roderick,” Lionel said, “it’s only twelve o’clock now; do you mean to say we have to stop in this wet hole till two or three in the afternoon?”

“Ay, chist that,” the keeper said, coolly.  “They will begin to feed about three; and until they go over the ridge, it is no use at all trying to get near them.”

“And what are we to do all the time?”

“Chist wait,” Roderick said, with much simplicity; and then he and the gillie withdrew a little way down the peat-hag, so that they might have their luncheon and a cautious whispering in Gaelic by themselves.