He hoisted out of the water the dead dog-fish, which was about four feet long, and then shook it back.
"Here, Ogilvie," said he, "take the boat-hook. There are plenty about here. Make yourself St. Patrick exterminating snakes."
Ogilvie tried the dog-fish spearing with more or less success; but it was the means of procuring for him a bitter disappointment. As they went quietly over the sea-weed—the keel of the boat hissing through it and occasionally grating on the sand—they perceived that the water was getting a bit deeper, and it was almost impossible to strike the boat-hook straight. At this moment, Ogilvie, happening to cast a glance along the rocks close by them, started and seized Macleod's arm. What the frightened eyes of the younger man seemed to see was a great white and gray object lying on the rocks, and staring at him with huge black eyes. At first it almost appeared to him to be a man with a grizzled and hairy face; then he tried to think of some white beast with big black eyes; then he knew. For the next second there was an unwieldy roll down the rocks, and then a heavy splash in the water; and the huge gray seal had disappeared. And there he stood helpless, with the boat-hook in his hand.
"It is my usual luck," said he, in despair. "If I had had my rifle in my hand, we should never have got within a hundred yards of the beast. But I got an awful fright. I never before saw a live seal just in front of one's nose like that."
"You would have missed him," said Macleod, coolly.
"Yes. When you come on one so near as that, you are too startled to take aim. You would have blazed away and missed."
"I don't think so," said Ogilvie, with some modest persistence. "When I shot that stag, I was steady enough, though I felt my heart thumping away like fun."
"There you had plenty of time to take your aim—and a rock to rest your rifle on." And then he added: "You would have broken Hamish's heart, Ogilvie, if you had missed that stag. He was quite determined you should have one on your first day out; and I never saw him take such elaborate precautions before. I suppose it was terribly tedious to you; but you may depend on it it was necessary. There isn't one of the younger men can match Hamish, though he was bred a sailor."
"Well," Mr. Ogilvie admitted, "I began to think we were having a great deal of trouble for nothing; especially when it seemed as though the wind were blowing half a dozen ways in the one valley."