THE ISLAND OF HITTEREN 



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old Irish sportsman and keen stalker and shot, was 

 then at Havn with his son, who was also a keen 

 and enthusiastic sportsman, and many a pleasant 

 evening we passed together at Havn comparing notes 

 and exchanging yarns about Scotch and Norway sport. 

 Both Staples, father and son, have now joined the 

 great majority, but for some years we were habitues 

 of Hitteren together, along with John de Grey, a 

 well-known Anglo -Norwegian sportsman, and a sub- 

 sequent partner of R. Staples junior, in the lease of 

 Havn and Aune Forest. 



But of that year 1876. How the incidents of the 

 death of each noble stag dwell in one's memory ! I 

 came down to Havn that October with a particularly 

 good lot of heads. There was one wide and heavy 

 twelve-pointer, for example, one of the very few 

 twelve-pointers I have shot on Hitteren. I had 

 obtained him in a somewhat sudden and unexpected 

 manner, without a legitimate and orthodox spy and 

 stalk. Eric, my hunter, and I had gone up to a hut 

 on the far side of the forest, bordering on the great 

 Aune flat, about the 1st of October, and during an 

 early morning stalk we happened on a small stag on 

 the very march. He came running out of a thickly - 

 wooded glen as if the ' old gentleman ' was after him, 

 and ran almost into our arms. I spared him, in com- 

 passion for his youth and innocence, let us say. This 

 way of putting it is more flattering to one's virtue 

 than bluntly to explain that he carried a small six- 

 point head that I did not covet. But the inference 

 from his hasty movements was clear. He had no 

 doubt tried a flirtation with some of the members of 

 a hind harem down the glen, and been ignominiously 

 driven out of that by some larger stag who was boss 



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