All this lonely world of olive greens and browns had grown strangely dark.  Even the hum of flies—­the only sound audible in these high solitudes away from the sea—­seemed stilled; and a cold wind began to blow over from Ben-an-Sloich.  The plain of the valley in front of them began to fade from view; then they found themselves enveloped in a clammy fog, that settled on their clothes and hung about their eyelids and beard, while water began to run down the barrels of their guns.  The wind blew harder and harder:  presently they seemed to spring out of the darkness; and, turning, they found that the cloud had swept onward toward the sea, leaving the rocks on the nearest hillside all glittering wet in the brief burst of sunlight.  It was but a glimmer.  Heavier clouds came sweeping over; downright rain began to pour.  But Ogilvie kept manfully to his work.  He climbed over the stone walls, gripping on with his wet hands.  He splashed through the boggy land, paying no attention to his footsteps.  And at last he got to following Macleod’s plan of crossing a burn, which was merely to wade through the foaming brown water instead of looking out for big stones.  By this time the letters in his breast pocket were a mass of pulp.

“Look here, Macleod,” said he, with the rain running down his face, “I can’t tell the difference between one bird and another.  If I shoot a partridge it isn’t my fault.”

“All right,” said Macleod.  “If a partridge is fool enough to be up here, it deserves it.”

Just at this moment Mr. Ogilvie suddenly threw up his hands and his gun, as if to protect his face.  An extraordinary object—­a winged object, apparently without a tail, a whirring bunch of loose gray feathers, a creature resembling no known fowl—­had been put up by one of the dogs, and it had flown direct at Ogilvie’s head.  It passed him at about half a yard’s distance.

“What in all the world is that?” he cried, jumping round to have a look at it.

“Why,” said Macleod, who was roaring with laughter, “it is a baby blackcock, just out of the shell, I should think.”

A sudden noise behind him caused him to wheel round, and instinctively he put up his gun.  He took it down again.

“That is the old hen,” said he; “we’ll leave her to look after her chicks.  Hamish, get in the dogs, or they’ll be for eating some of those young ones.  And you, Sandy, where was it you left the basket?  We will go for our splendid banquet now, Ogilvie.”

That was an odd-looking party that by and by might have been seen crouching under the lee of a stone wall with a small brook running by their feet.  They had taken down wet stones for seats; and these were somewhat insecurely fixed on the steep bank.  But neither the rain, nor the gloom, nor the loneliness of the silent moors seemed to have damped their spirits much.

“It really is awfully kind of you, Ogilvie,” Macleod said, as he threw half a sandwich to the old black retriever, “to take pity on a solitary fellow like myself.  You can’t tell how glad I was to see you on the bridge of the steamer.  And now that you have taken all the trouble to come to this place, and have taken your chance of our poor shooting, this is the sort of day you get!”