110 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



man, if he's anything of a sportsman, and eager to 

 learn, will soon master the rudiments of the art ; then 

 with a better knowledge of the sport a keener relish 

 comes. Deer-stalking, like fox-hunting, grows on 

 one : the more you get, the more you want, and as 

 season after season comes round, you look forward to 

 your month or six weeks in the forest with a school- 

 boy enthusiasm easier to imagine than describe. 



What can equal the delights of a journey up the 

 Highland Eailway in a lovely clear day or in a 

 beastly thick night ? What does it matter, so long 

 as you have the season before you? And then the 

 arrival at " the lodge," and the welcome you get as 

 you drive up to the door. All the gillies except 

 those on duty are there, for haven't they heard you 

 were coming? And Duncan and Donald, Kenneth 

 and Hector, appear in quick succession from the gun- 

 room, and stables, and kennels across the burn. Then 

 a hearty grip of the hand to all as heartily returned 

 (none of your Southern coldness here) and in five 

 minutes you are hearing all their jokes and getting all 

 their news ; how " the captain " got two yesterday 

 " doon the loch-side," and hoAV " the colonel " missed 

 a real good one the day before, feeding quietly broad- 

 side on, "just aboot sixty yairds off." Then, with 

 the darkness, in come your friends from the different 

 beats in the forest, and you have now an accoxint of 

 the " colonel's miss " from that gallant warrior him- 

 self. It differs in some material particulars from 



