438 A WARRANTABLE DEER 



attracted the sight of my left eye, and appeared to be 

 of a different colour to the white foam which was 

 washed down from the red fall above me. On turning 

 my head to see what it was, I was much surprised to 

 observe a fine stag doing its utmost to escape from me 

 and my rod. The neck of the pool is only nine feet 

 across, so that the stag, when exhausted by trying the 

 fall, fell back to my feet in order to get a rest in the 

 slacker water. Wishing to prevent its being frightened 

 into the pool lower down and so spoiling the water, I 

 kept on touching it with the point of my rod. The 

 poor beast got so exhausted at last in its endeavours 

 to swim the fall, that I allowed it to come to my feet, 

 and the gillie, Hugh Fraser, managed, by dint of 

 throwing stones, to turn it up on to the only ledge of 

 rock in the pool to which it could manage to swim and 

 get on, and there it remained the whole day, staring 

 at us while fishing and having our luncheon. No 

 doubt when we left the pool it swam quietly down the 

 river and got out into the Ruttle, or some other of the 

 celebrated Beaufort coverts. 



A curious piece of luck once happened to me. One 

 very bright day in the same month I had walked some 

 four miles to fish, and sat down to rest under the shade 

 of a hazel-bush, and began to think it useless trying to 

 fish on such a bright day and with the water so low as 

 it was. However, I lazily proceeded to put my rod 

 together, still keeping under the bush. I had just 

 fixed the joints, and was raising the rod to see if every- 

 thing was all right before I put on the reel, when flop 

 at my feet fell a magnificent trout of 3 lb., which I 

 quickly appropriated. On looking up to see what was 

 the cause of such luck, it proved to be that an osprey, 



