THE STAG 183 



delight in difficulties overcome, which is the true 

 charm and secret of healthy sport ; a certain greed 

 and vulgar boastfulness of mere numbers, and a 

 love of flattery; the influence of which upon the 

 ghillies has been to change the natural good- 

 feeling, the air of high-bred civility, of which most 

 mountaineers have a far greater share than men 

 of the same rank of life brought up in the Low- 

 lands, into servility, rudeness, and mercenariness. 



The labour, jolting, and frequent abrasions of the 

 stalk, together with the need to exercise one's own 

 powers of observation and resource, are avoided ; 

 while very much larger results are obtained by the 

 modern drive, in which the sportsman is skilfully 

 disposed, with due regard to the wind, and every 

 other contingency, and told to await developments. 



All the available idle men in the neighbourhood 

 are taken into the service, whose duty it is, by 

 hallooing, and every other device known to them, 

 to frighten the deer into a mass, and to force them 

 on in the direction of the passes where the guns 

 are posted. 



Cautiously, as if suspecting danger, a few heads 

 appear, and then the main body, pressed on from be- 

 hind, follow. Thus the work begins. A true sports- 

 man will select his stag, and try to confine himself to 



