“He’s down, sir,” Hamish reasserted.  “Come away Sandy, with the dog!” he shouted to the red-headed lad, who had gone down into the glen to help Nell in her researches.  By this time they saw that Sandy was recrossing the burn with the grouse in his hand, Nell following him contentedly.  They whistled, and again whistled; but Nell considered that her task had been accomplished, and alternately looked at them and up at her immediate master.  However, the tall lad, probably considering that the whistling was meant as much for him as for the retriever, sprang up the side of the glen in a miraculous fashion, catching here and there by a bunch of heather or the stump of a young larch, and presently he had rejoined the party.

“Take time, sir,” said he.  “Take time.  Maybe there is more of them about here.  And the other one, I marked him down from the other side.  We will get him ferry well.”

They found nothing, however, until they had got to the other side of the hill, where Nell speedily made herself mistress of the other bird—­a fine young cock grouse, plump and in splendid plumage.

“And what do you think of the morning now, Ogilvie?” Macleod asked.

“Oh, I dare say it will clear,” said he, shyly; and he endeavored to make light of Hamish’s assertions that they were “ferry pretty shots—­ferry good shots; and it was always a right thing to put cartridges in the barrels at the door of a house, for no one could tell what might be close to the house; and he was sure that Mr. Ogilvie had not forgotten the use of a gun since he went away from the hills to live in England.”

“But look here, Macleod,” Mr. Ogilvie said; “why did not you fire yourself?”—­he was very properly surprised; for the most generous and self-denying of men are apt to claim their rights when a grouse gets up to their side.

“Oh,” said Macleod simply, “I wanted you to have a shot.”

And indeed all through the day he was obviously far more concerned about Ogilvie’s shooting than his own.  He took all the hardest work on himself—­taking the outside beat, for example, if there was a bit of unpromising ground to be got over.  When one or other of the dogs suddenly showed by its uplifted fore-paw, its rigid tail, and its slow, cautious, timid look round for help and encouragement, that there was something ahead of more importance than a lark, Macleod would run all the risks of waiting to give Ogilvie time to come up.  If a hare ran across with any chance of coming within shot of Ogilvie, Macleod let her go by unscathed.  And the young gentleman from the South knew enough about shooting to understand how he was being favored both by his host and—­what was a more unlikely thing—­by Hamish.

He was shooting very well, too; and his spirits rose and rose until the lowering day was forgotten altogether.

“We are in for a soaker this time!” he cried, quite cheerfully, looking around at one moment.