364 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



was following in the steps of my stalker, and had 

 nothing to do with this, and therefore no one to 

 blame but him ; and, alas ! when we got to the craigs 

 above the stag we were trying to approach, and 

 Stuart was viewing the ground, the uneasy trotting 

 about in a small space of the hinds convinced us that 

 they had our wind, and, though they could not just 

 then fix our whereabout, all hope of getting to the 

 stag was vain. Having given up all idea of this 

 stag, we sought the upper side of the wood of Gusa, 

 and very soon made out another. Having descended 

 and obtained, as Stuart thought, the wind of him, we 

 tried to get at him, but again in vain ; when we 

 made him out, he and his hinds were restless, and, on 

 approaching his locality, he had vanished. We then 

 gave the whole affair up ; it was blowing and raining 

 torrents, and, having sought the margin of Loch 

 Arkeg, we were on our return home when I thought, 

 on glancing up the side of the hill, that I could see a 

 deer. Stuart directed his glass, but declared there 

 Avere none there ; when his son, Donald Stuart, as 

 quick and intelligent a youth as I wish to see, asserted 

 that he could see a stas; and hinds, and that the staof 

 was a very large one and lying down ; and all this 

 with the naked eye. His father, so directed, then 

 made them out, and we once more prepared to stalk 

 them. They with the stag were lying on the side of 

 the mountain in the wood above us, and were visible, 

 as I said before, to Donald without the glass, and, 

 therefore, we must have been, had they looked at us, 

 as visible to them. When we commenced the stalk, 

 however, the stag was lying down very quietly, and 

 there was no possibility of his gaining our wind, so 

 Stuart led along the water line without stooping his 



I 



