262 AFTER DEER 



in our faces, setting our minds at rest on the score 

 of giving him our wind ; and we find that, scarcely 

 startled as he was, he has gone no farther than the 

 adjacent corry, the wildest and roughest of the wild 

 shooting-ground. Deep in the bottom there is rich 

 green turf, but one side and the other are a jumble 

 of grey, weather-beaten rocks, while through their 

 ragged portals at the farther end the eye rests far 

 below on the leaden rollers of the Atlantic. The stag 

 has found friends, and the half-dozen of smaller deer 

 that are grouped around him serve to set off his own 

 stately form, while a lanky meddlesome hind pricks 

 her sharp ears, and sweeps with her restless glance 

 the broken ground over which we might otherwise 

 have made our approaches. There is but one thing 

 to be done, and that is to pick one's way by the back 

 of that broken ridge to the right, which, if luck should 

 stand our friend, may possibly bring us within some 

 one hundred and twenty yards of the herd. Talk of 

 the chances of a tiger dropping on your shoulders 

 in an Indian covert more imminent peril waits you 

 here. As you leap from ledge to ledge, a sprained ankle 

 would seem inevitable if you took time to think about 

 it ; and every now and then, as you bound, you land 

 on a spot where, if you do miss your footing, you may 

 realise the hopes of the venerable raven who is croaking 

 sanguinely overhead. It is the path of the chamois or 

 bouquetin hunter ; and, although the abysses of the 

 Alps may be deeper, yet the penalty of a false step 

 is no less certain here than there. But you have 



