AFTER DEER 261 



down. Once up there, all wet and half blown, we sink 

 down among the scattered blocks of stone, and from 

 behind a fringe of soaking heather gaze eagerly into 

 the long bare glen below. The damp lies so thick 

 on the telescope glasses that we reject them as useless ; 

 but even with the naked eye we can make out a stag 

 as he grazes quietly among some broken knolls at the 

 upper end, where there is always shelter of some kind 

 in the wildest weather. What his size may be it is 

 hard to guess, a matter of the less consequence to us, 

 as we own with a sigh that it is almost impossible to 

 stalk him. Did the brown dwarf of the moors haunt 

 the Hebrides instead of the Cheviots, he could never 

 find cover among the pebbles and stunted heather on 

 that bare hillside, or on the smooth natural meadow 

 through which the stream winds at the bottom. But 

 the wind blows from the deer to us, and, as he is 

 feeding straight away, there may be a distant chance 

 of bringing him to bag, if we only walk straight 

 forward and trust to Fortune and the mist. What 

 they might have done for us it is impossible to say ; 

 for an imp of a mountain sheep, wild and wary as the 

 deer himself, comes scrambling out of a hollow, and 

 goes bounding up the steep, clattering down the 

 pebbles behind him as he mounts. The stag accepts 

 the friendly hint, and, taking for granted the danger 

 that he neither smells nor sees, trots leisurely over 

 the ridge, showing to our longing eyes a pair of 

 antlers well worth following as he crosses the sky- 

 line. And so we do follow, the air, breathing fresh 



