A " PATH^TIQUE " FINALE 109 



Poor dear Farley it did not bring forth much, 

 and we had a "Pathetique" finale instead of the 

 glorious " C minor " which I had hoped for. 

 We never saw a shootable beast during September, 

 though I might have got two small stags (about 

 11 stone each) on two separate occasions, both of 

 which I missed ingloriously one near the Duck 

 Loch when we were grousing the beginning of the 

 month, and the other on the West Hill at the end of 

 the month. However, at long last on the 4th of 

 October, a very wet day, we found some stags near 

 the Duck Loch, and after a long wait and a very 

 wet lunch standing up, I got a shot from behind 

 a rock at a fair beast which was moving off, and 

 brought him to his knees with a very lucky shot 

 that broke both his forelegs a 7-pointer with a 

 very poor head, weighing 13 stone 10 pounds, 

 in good condition, and quite a prize in these days 

 of modern music and daylight saving. 



And the next day, also very wet, we got a small 

 stag on the top of the North Hill; and the mist 

 was so thick we got utterly lost, and made an 

 awful muddle of dragging the beast down, as, of 

 course, we could not get the pony to the top, and 

 dragged it straight in the wrong direction right 

 away from where the pony was waiting, so that 

 Sandy had a much longer journey to make than he 

 should have had; and he was only a poor wee 

 staggie of 11 stone 11 pounds, so our satisfaction 

 was not as complete as our soaking. 



