Lionel was not sorry to be again in motion, and yet very soon he found that motion was not an unmixed joy; for these two fellows, who were now going down wind along the route they had come, and therefore walking fearlessly, took enormously long strides and held straight on, no matter what sort of ground they were covering.  For the sake of his country, he fought hard to keep up with them; he would not have them say they could outwalk an Englishman—­and an Englishman considerably younger than either of them; but the way those two went over this rough and broken land was most extraordinary.  And it seemed so easy; they did not appear to be putting forth any exertion; in spite of all he could do, he began to lag a little; and so he thought he would mitigate their ardor by engaging them in a little conversation.

“Roderick,” said he, “do you think this neighborhood was ever inhabited?”

“Inhabited?” said Roderick, turning in surprise.  “Oh, ay, it was inhabited ahlways—­by foxes and eagles.”

“Not by human beings?”

“Well, they would be ferry clever that could get a living out of land like this,” Roderick said, simply.

“But they say in the House of Commons that the deer-forests are depriving a large portion of the population of a means of subsistence,” Lionel observed—­rather breathlessly, for these long strides were fearful.

“Ay, do they say that now?” Roderick made answer, with much simplicity.  “In the House of Commons?  I’m thinking there is some foolish men in the House of Commons.  Mebbe they would not like themselves to come here and try to get their living out of rocks and peat-hags.”

“But don’t you think there may have been people in these parts before the ancient forests rotted down into peat?” Lionel again inquired.

“I do not know about that,” Roderick said, discreetly; perhaps he knew that his opinions about prehistoric man were not of great value.

But what Lionel discovered was that talking in no wise interfered with the tremendous pace of the forester; and he was just on the point of begging for a respite from this intolerable exertion when a change in their direction caused both Roderick and the gillie to proceed more circumspectly:  they were now coming in view of the Corrie-nam-Miseag, and they had to approach with care, slinking along through hollows and behind mounds and rocks.

By this time, it must be confessed, Lionel was thoroughly dead-beat:  he was wet through, icily cold, and miserable to the verge of despair.  The afternoon was well advanced; they had seen no sign of a stag anywhere; the gloomy evening threatened to bring darkness on prematurely; and but for very shame’s sake, he would have entreated them to abandon this fruitless enterprise, and set out for the far-off region of warmth and reasonable comfort and dry clothes.  And yet when Roderick, having crawled up to the top of a small height, suddenly and eagerly signalled for Lionel to follow him, all this hopeless lassitude was instantly forgotten.  His heart began to burn, if his limbs were deadly cold; and quickly he was on the ground, too, moving himself up alongside the keeper.  The glass was given him, but his trembling fingers could not hold it straight; he put it down, and by and by his natural eyes showed him what he thought were some slightly moving objects.