72 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



hill, was another great birch-wood. Its leafy glades 

 and mossy dells, through which, here and there, ran 

 trickling burns, arched over with dense green birch- 

 boughs, formed ideal shelter for red-deer. One or 

 more good stags were known regularly to harbour in 

 the recesses of this wood : cunning old stagers, wily 

 as foxes, who knew every trick and artifice of the 

 hunted, and who probably looked upon our frequent 

 attempts to drive them to the rifles as so many 

 exciting games of hide-and-seek. 



The existence of good stags in this birch-wood was 

 forcibly impressed on my mind one Sabbath afternoon 

 late in August. A few hundred yards down the road 

 from the lodge was a convenient adjacent hillock, 

 whence a large part of the wood could be com- 

 fortably spied, and particularly the upper part of it, 

 which terminated in the little wooded hill I have 

 mentioned. 



I walked down to the hillock by the roadside that 

 particular Sunday after tea, to admire the view and 

 to spy for possible deer. To and fro I moved the 

 glass o'er green hill and dale, when a movement of a 

 red body on the little hill in question caught my eye 

 and galvanized attention. Then a fine stag became 

 clearly visible, quietly rubbing his horns on a tree in 

 a small open space on the very brow of the hill. I 

 watched him with eager gaze ; noted his spreading 

 horns and fine proportions ; marked with painful and 

 envious accuracy exactly how I could have approached 

 to within easy shot had it only been a week-day ; and 

 then returned to interview Sandy and arrange a deadly 

 campaign for the future. 



At first we deferred driving operations. It was 

 fondly hoped that the stag would play the proper 



