66 ECHOES OF SPORT 



very little English. Sure of his kindly 

 interest > I said, " Oh, John ! I've done an 

 awful thing ; I've lost a stag ! " 



His gaunt face lengthened another foot, and 

 he exclaimed in a hoarse, horror-struck voice, 

 " My Gott ! " Had I confessed to having shot 

 Donald or the ghillie his tone could not have 

 expressed greater consternation . Presumably 

 the Gaelic mind invokes the Almighty as 

 easily as do our Continental friends, but at 

 that moment Long John's serious view of 

 the situation did not seem at all out of 

 place. 



The one gleam of comfort was the sym- 

 pathetic reception my tale received from my 

 dear hosts, yet nothing could exorcise that 

 vanishing form as I had last seen it. 



There is nothing so depressing and 

 haunting as a lost stag, and hard is the 

 penalty one pays, and rightly so, for such 

 blunders. 



So ended the chapter of darkness. 



