THE ISLAND OF HITTEREN 37 



met Staples and his father. ' There's a pirate on the 

 island,' was the remark with which I was greeted. 



At a cheery dinner that evening the statement was 

 more fully explained. It appeared that the lessees of 

 the shooting on the far south-west corner of Hitteren 

 had gone home early, and had given leave to a certain 

 naval Captain to shoot their forest, on which the deer 

 that year were scarce. This forest marched at one 

 end with the best of the Aune ground, whereon our 

 aforesaid naval Captain had, according to Staples, 

 freely encroached ; being carried away, of course, by 

 the ardour of sport, and, as a stranger to the island, 

 not knowing the marches too well. 



The ' pirate ' proved to be Captain now Admiral 

 Sir William Kennedy, K.N., that well-known good 

 sportsman, and author of ' Hurrah for the Life of a 

 Sailor!' We met him in the flesh an hour or two 

 later, and on the voyage home together that year I 

 had the pleasure of commencing with him what has 

 proved to be a long and lasting friendship. 



Kennedy arrived late that same evening at Havn 

 by open boat from beyond Aune, and he came not 

 empty-handed. Among his impedimenta there loomed 

 large a very fine and long eleven-point head, with the 

 heaviest cups or crowns I have ever seen on any 

 Hitteren head. This proved to be the master head 

 of the season, and wanted but one bay tine to be a 

 full royal. The head itself was wrapped up in blood- 

 stained sacking, had obviously been killed that day, 

 and the vague accounts of exactly where it had been 

 found and stalked we could only charitably ascribe to 

 the ' pirate's ' want of previous knowledge of Hitteren 

 topography. But Kennedy was our 'stable' com- 

 panion during the subsequent voyage home, and this 



