The finest stag's head and antlers that we have ever seen form a trophy in the possession of our neighbour, Mr. Bill, Kilmalieu, the magnificent "monarch of the waste" that bore them having fallen to that gentleman's own rifle in Glengour two or three years ago. The other day, however, we were shown a set of larger horns, though not quite so handsome perhaps, or so faultless in spread and curve, and unfortunately imperfect from the loss of one of the tines, which was picked up by a shepherd in the Black Mount Forest many years ago. The size of beam throughout was something extraordinary, and one could not help regretting that it had not the head and neck attached, that it might be set up in the style for which the good city of Inverness has of recent years become so famous. Such a trophy of the chase, complete in all its parts, would have deserved the place of honour amid a thousand such trophies in the noblest hall in the kingdom. As we handled these antlers, and poised them at arm's length with admiration, the thought suddenly struck us that Edmund Waller, the poet, must have had some such magnificent trophy before him when he burst into the following apostrophe, in which a well-known fact in the natural history of the animal is so happily interwoven with the old mythological legend:--
"O fertile head! which every year Could such a crop of wonder bear! The teeming earth did never bring So soon so hard, so huge a thing: Which, might it never have been cast, Each year's growth added to the last, These lofty branches had supplied, The earth's bold sons' prodigious pride; Heaven with these engines had been scal'd When mountains heaped on mountains failed."
Lines, by the way, that would form a most happy and appropriate inscription for any really fine trophy of this kind.
Calling upon the Misses Macdonald of Achtriachtan the other day at Fort-William, we were shown some very fine old silver-plate, having a history of its own, to the recital of which we listened with no small interest. After the battle of Culloden, a party of "red-coat" soldiers entered Lochaber, and employed themselves in pillaging and plundering in all directions. Hearing that visitors so unwelcome were in the neighbourhood, Mrs. Cameron of Glenevis, a lady of great spirit and decision of character, had all her silver-plate, china, and other valuables buried deep in the ground outside the garden wall, after which she removed, with her children and personal attendants, to a spacious cave called Uaimh Shomhairle (Samuel's Cave), far up the glen, in the south-western shoulder of Ben Nevis. Meanwhile the soldiers visited Glenevis House, but, disappointed at not finding the valuables they looked for in such a residence, they burned and plundered the glen without mercy, the terrified inhabitants taking to the mountains, only too glad to escape with their lives, while their homesteads were in flames, and their cattle either driven away or slaughtered on the spot. Lady Glenevis was at last discovered in her cave by a party of soldiers, who had somehow heard of her place of retreat, and had to undergo much rude treatment at their hands, because, in defiance of all their threats, she refused to tell where the valuables of which they were in search had been hidden away. As they were about to leave the cave, one of the soldiers, observing that she had something bulky in her breast, of which she seemed very careful, and over which her plaid, fastened with a silver brooch, was carefully drawn, made a snatch at the trinket, and, when the lady resisted, drew his sword and made a thrust, which cut open the plaid at its point of fastening, wounding her infant son at the same moment in the neck; for the hidden treasure in her bosom, though the soldier doubtless thought it might turn out to be something of more marketable value, was a child only a few months old. The soldiers at last departed, carrying with them the brooch and plaid as the only trophies of their victory over the defenceless lady of the cave. The wounded child recovered, though he bore the mark of the sword-thrust to his dying day. He lived to be laird of Glenevis, was father of the late much-respected Mrs. Macdonald of Achtriachtan, and grandfather of the ladies above mentioned. We remember hearing our friend, the late Dr. Macintyre of Kilmonivaig, repeating some very fine Gaelic lines to a waterfall, something in the style of Southey's address to Lodore, which he said was by the Mrs. Cameron of Glenevis above mentioned, and composed by her while in hiding in the cave. When quieter times came round, the buried valuables were of course exhumed, and were found to be none the worse of their temporary interment.