There is no necessity for saying anything in reply to the attacks of a few pastoral tenants or large sheep farmers. It is now matter of history that by repeated and uncontradicted assertion a comparatively small and uninfluential sheep-farmer clique had thoroughly convinced themselves, and almost persuaded a portion of the public, that deer forests were responsible for all the misery and poverty in the Highlands, for all the cruel evictions which were carried out to make room, not for deer, but for those very farmers who made such a noise. Having succeeded in infecting some impressionable people, including not a few writers in the press who knew as little of a deer forest and its surroundings as they did of the great Sahara, there was at one time some danger of the outcry becoming general; but the report of the Parliamentary Commission so completely exposed the nakedness of the land, so thoroughly demonstrated the absence of anything like reasonable foundation for complaint, as to convince even the most extreme politician of the utter absurdity of the position assumed. The cry never did find an echo in the heart of the Highlander. He knew too well that the same justice had been meted out to him and his by the predecessors of those very farmers, as they themselves were then receiving at the hands of the wealthy Sassenach. He knew that the evil of depopulation had been accomplished in the Highlands, not by the introduction of deer, but of sheep on a large scale by Lowland farmers before ever deer forests had come to be considered a source of revenue. It was, therefore, somewhat amusing to the Highland people to witness the descendants of these Lowland _novi homines_ smitten upon the thigh and roaring lustily. The only bribe they promised allies was the offer of mutton a twentieth of a penny per pound cheaper, and Highlanders refused to be bought over at that price, especially as its payment was more than doubtful. The deer forest agitation has died a natural death. Peace to its ashes.