MY FIRST STAG 5 



about 100 yards below me. Evidently, I think, 

 Merton Barker must have hit him, but we could 

 find no trace of a wound, except the bullet with 

 which I gave him the happy despatch, to my 

 unbounded delight. And then another stag 

 appearing, he, too, presented an easy shot and so 

 I got a couple at my first attempt, and our joy 

 was complete. What did it matter that the stags 

 were small, about 12 stone each, and the heads 

 poor ? Roy was all for blooding me, but I 

 declined that little attention. We were a very 

 merry party at lunch, as, indeed, we ought to have 

 been two stags at the very start. I had visions 

 of half a dozen by the end of the day, but we got 

 no more. 



Only two other stalks are worthy of mention 

 in this first year. Three or four days after driving 

 Farley Wood I was out with dear old Davie Ross 

 (who did all the stalking this year, Matheson, the 

 head-keeper, having been called up), when we 

 suddenly stumbled on some deer feeding in some 

 bracken about 150 yards away and a good deal 

 below us. Of course, they at once made off, and as 

 one of them was a fair beast, though with a very 

 poor head (beggars cannot be choosers), I fired 

 from the shoulder standing, and broke one of his 

 hind legs. This, of course, slackened his pace, and 

 Davie, aged sixty-four, the ghillie Sandy Forbes, 

 also no chicken, and I started in hot pursuit. It 

 proved a long chase and a stern chase, and though 



