But let us trace no further, thus step by step, the Pilgrim’s Progress. Look at him now,--a finished sportsman--on the moors--the bright black boundless Dalwhinnie Moors, stretching away, by long Lock-Erricht-side, into the dim and distant day that hangs, with all its clouds, over the bosom of far Loch-Rannoch. Is that the pluffer at partridge pouts who had nearly been the death of poor Ponto? Lord Kennedy himself might take a lesson now from the straight and steady style in which, on the mountain brow, and up to the middle in heather, he brings his Manton to the deadly level! More unerring eye never glanced along brown barrel! Finer forefinger never touched a trigger! Follow him a whole day, and not one wounded bird. All most beautifully arrested on their flight by instantaneous death! Down dropped, right and left, like lead on the heather--old cock and hen singled out among the orphan’s brood, as calmly as a cook would do it in the larder--from among a pile of plumage. No random shot within--no needless shot out of distance--covered every feather before stir of finger--and body, back, and brain, pierced, broken, scattered! And what perfect pointers! There they stand, still as death--yet instinct with life--the whole half-dozen--Mungo, the black-tanned--Don, the red-spotted--Clara, the snow-white--Primrose, the pale yellow--Basto, the bright brown, and Nimrod, in his coat of many colours, often seen afar through the mists like a meteor. [BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.] [Illustration: 201] THE ELOPEMENT. On the banks of the rivulet Lockwitz, in Hungary, and upon the borders of Thuringia, where a convent formerly stood, which was destroyed in the time of the Hussites, is situated the Castle of Lauenstein. This church property, in process of time, came under the secular arm, and became the possession of the Count of Orlamunda, who gave this deserted domain as a feu to one of his vassals, who, upon the ruins of the convent, built himself a castle, and either gave his name to the property, or took his from it, for he was called the Baron of Lauenstein.