66 ERCHLESS AND FARLEY, 1918 



him; and of course John Stone is frightfully 

 lucky. 



The next day, Saturday the 5th, Susan and 

 I were with Eraser on the home beat at Erchless, 

 and " poor old Merton " had the long, long road 

 to Glengowrie for his first day. He got a shot, 

 but missed, and came home somewhat down- 

 hearted, but nothing like the absolute misery it 

 causes to me. After parting with Merton, Eraser, 

 Susan, and I, made for Cairn Slofti, where the 

 former had spied several lots of deer; they were 

 all of them unapproachable, so we had an early 

 lunch and waited to see what would happen. We 

 had a pretty long wait of two hours, but it was 

 quite interesting, as we could see one lot of stags 

 and hear one or two other lots roaring at each 

 other. Finally, Eraser made up his mind which 

 to go for; it was a difficult job, as there were so 

 many about and they were mostly split up and 

 hidden from our view and each other's view, as 

 Cairn Slofti is so steep and full of little corries and 

 clefts and steep cliffs. And after a deal of 

 climbing and crawling we found ourselves on a 

 ridge commanding a plateau on which our stag 

 was roaring away at another stag hidden away 

 on a ledge below the plateau. I had a very 

 uncomfortable shot, as Eraser was mostly in the 

 way and I could not get a good rest; however, I 

 got him all right, and though he disappeared, we 

 did not think he could go far, and we soon found 



