CHAPTER XIX 



In Forest and on Hill 



YVTTE are reminded by Mr. Colquhoun of the old 

 V* Highland apothegm, " No man has a right to 

 the hunter's badge who has not killed a red deer, an 

 eagle, a salmon, and a seal." And undoubtedly deer- 

 stalking deserves the place he assigns to it, as much for 

 the sport itself as for the wild picturesqueness of the 

 surroundings. But for its full enjoyment it must be 

 studied as an art, and followed habitually and syste- 

 matically. The stalker must pay for his own ex- 

 perience, after an ordeal of disappointments and many 

 mortifications. Should you have the offer of a day's 

 stalking once in a way, you must be content to abjure 

 your individuality if you hope to come home with a 

 head. You must place yourself unreservedly in the 

 hands of the professional stalker, whose eyes have been 

 exercised on the hills from his boyhood ; who knows 

 the lie of the hidden corries, and has an instinct for the 

 mysterious currents of the wind. But even in these 

 somewhat humiliating circumstances the excitement is 

 so intense that you are unconscious of fatigue and 

 indifferent to danger. What can be more romantically 



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