There was a bird's-eye view of a confused panorama of hill and valley, of black peat-moss and bright green corrie, interspersed with rills and streams winding their way towards lochs and rivers. But in due time the "prospect-glass" was supported against a walking-stick driven into the ground, and Venables having focussed his eye, was devoting himself to his immediate object. Leslie had lighted a pipe, and was looking on listlessly. He did not believe much in the chase, but he felt amply rewarded for the expedition –
When Venables in a stifled whisper, as if he had been breathing the words into a telephone of preternatural sensibility, summoned Peter to put an eye to the glass.
"Ay, it will be them, sure enough, sir," was the deliberate answer; "and it will not be that difficult to make the stalk upon the beasts, whatever."
Leslie motioned Peter aside, and took his turn of observation. Yes, there were the goats – the family-party; four of them were visible, and possibly there might be more.
"And the wind is favourable," whispered Venables, "as if the day had been arranged for us; and nothing worse than a long circuit to make – that's to say, if they don't shift. Once upon the top of that ridge of rock, and they ought to be within easy range."
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It is an anxious moment when, after a lengthened stalk, you reach the spot you have been steering for by predetermined bearings. With Leslie and Peter following at a distance in his wake, Venables had dragged himself forward to the edge of the cliffs, and with a heart beating as if it would have burst his waistcoat-buttons, had he worn a waistcoat, he drew a hand across his eyes to brush away the streaming perspiration, – then he turned his head in the direction where the goats might be. There they were, on a bit of grassy slope, within some seventy yards of him, and the shaggy-bearded ancient, with a pair of antediluvian-looking horns, was fully exposed. A conscious sense of certainty calmed his nerves. He pulled himself together, waited to regain breath, and sent his bullet in scientifically beneath the shoulder. Leslie and Peter ran forward – too late to see the goat take a header into vacancy, while his bereaved family made a bolt round the nearest convenient corner.
"There he is – there he lies!" exclaimed the excited sportsman, having changed his place, and craned over so recklessly that his friend was fain to hold on to him by his boots. "There he is! you can just get a sight of his hoofs, kicking away still under that shelf of granite."
"I see him," said Leslie quietly, after a moment or two. "And it's only a pity you did not leave the poor beggar in peace, since there is no possibility of recovering the body."
"Perhaps not. He weighs heavy, I dare to say. I'll have the head and horns at any rate, you bet, as the Yankees say." And before Leslie could well interpose, Jack, who, with the intuition of genius, had surveyed the track, had swung himself over the edge, and was steadily though slowly descending.
Facilis descensus, &c., has passed into a proverb; and we have it on immemorial French authority, that the first step is everything, or pretty nearly so. Venables proved the truth of the former maxim, but he had reason to question the wisdom of the second. He was a youth
