At the beginning of this month, Queen Mary paid a visit of pleasure to the Highlands of Perthshire, where the Earl of Athole was her entertainer. It is understood that Glen Tilt was the scene of a grand hunt, in the characteristic style of the country, at which the queen was present, and of which an account has been preserved to us by a scholarly personage who was in the royal train. ‘In the year 1563,’ says he (mistaking the year), ‘the Earl of Athole, a prince of the blood-royal, had, with much trouble and vast expense, a hunting-match for the entertainment of our most illustrious and most gracious queen. Our people call this a royal hunting. I was then,’ says William Barclay, ‘a young man, and was present on the occasion. Two thousand Highlanders, of wild Scotch, as you call them here, were employed to drive to the hunting-ground all the deer from the woods and hills of Athole, Badenoch, Mar, Murray, and the counties about. As these Highlanders use a light dress, and are very swift of foot, they went up and down so nimbly that in less than two months’ time they brought together 2000 red deer, besides roes and fallow-deer. The queen, the great men, and others, were in a glen when all the deer were brought before them. Believe me, the whole body of them moved forward in something like battle order. This sight still strikes me, and ever will, for they had a leader whom they followed close wherever he moved. This leader was a very fine stag, with a very high head. The sight delighted the queen very much; but she soon had occasion for fear, upon the earl’s (who had been accustomed to such sights) addressing her thus: “Do you observe that stag who is foremost of the herd? There is danger from that stag; for if either fear or rage should force him from the ridge of that hill, let every one look to himself, for none of us will be out of the way of harm; for the rest will follow this one, and having thrown us under foot, they will open a passage to this hill behind us.” What happened a moment after confirmed this opinion; for the queen ordered one of the best dogs to be let loose upon a wolf;[31] this the dog pursues, the leading stag was frightened, he flies by the same way he had come there, the rest rush after him, and break out where the thickest body of the Highlanders was. They had nothing for it but to throw themselves flat on the heath, and to allow the deer to pass over them. It was told the queen that several of the Highlanders had been wounded, and that two or three had been killed outright; and the whole body had got off, had not the Highlanders, by their skill in hunting, fallen upon a stratagem to cut off the rear from the main body. It was of those that had been separated that the queen’s dogs, and those of the nobility, made slaughter. There were killed that day 360 deer, with five wolves and some roes.’[32] [Illustration: Queen Mary’s Harp.] [Sidenote: 1564.]