ANECDOTE OF LATE LORD LOVAT 311 



the search had to be abandoned. In a sorry frame of 

 mind he started for home with his stalker. When they 

 had left the forest, and had gone about a mile on the 

 road home in the gloaming, the stalker spied something 

 like a beast lying behind a tree, quite close to a croft, 

 and he stopped his master, saying, ' There's a beast 

 lying there behind that bush, and I am thinking it may 

 be that canny beast has just left the forest and lay 

 clown there.' Lord Lovat could also discern a beast 

 of some sort, but said that it must be the crofter's 

 horse or cow, and that no stag would come down 

 amongst the crofts. The old stalker insisted, ' This 

 beast can do any canny thing ; and if your lordship 

 shoots yon beast, whether it be stag, horse, or cow, 

 where is the matter ? You can pay for the shot if it is 

 not the wounded beast.' ' Very right,' thought Lord 

 Lovat ; ' perhaps you are right again ;' and so he left 

 the old stalker where he was, so as to keep the atten- 

 tion of the beast fixed on him. It is a well-known 

 fact that deer and even grouse do not mind men 

 passing on a road, but if but one step is taken on to 

 the moor they are off at once. He therefore crept 

 round under a bank, and getting a better look at the 

 beast, fired and killed it, and to their astonishment and 

 delight there at last lay ' Square Toes ' ; the bullet 

 had at last found its billet. 



I have myself been for years after one stag without 

 ever seeinor more than the track of the cunninof beast ; 

 and in one case I tried for eight years for a big stag 

 before I got a sight of him, yet I must have often been 

 quite close to him in a small and wooded shooting. 

 One day, when returning from salmon-fishing on the 

 Beauly, on the 9th of August, 1886, having caught two 



