190 THE VALLEY OP ENCHANTMENT 



rifle to the stalker, I bade him go and finish off the second 

 beast, while I kept watch upon the first. Donald took 

 longer over the job than we had expected : he was absent 

 more than an hour, during which time through my glass 

 I watched the first stag, desperately wounded in the body, 

 creeping along the hillside, lying down from time to time 

 to ease his agony. At last he passed round the flank of 

 the hill out of my sight. Still, I felt sure of getting him ; 

 and when at last Donald returned, his dog with alacrity 

 took up the trail, which was marked, besides, with blood. 

 How many miles we followed it, I cannot tell ; but in the 

 end a storm came on with thick mist, and we lost the 

 trail altogether on a wind-swept waste of stones. This 

 happened several seasons ago, yet still my heart aches 

 when I shut my eyes and see that lonely beast on the 

 great brown hillside, dismissed to a slow, solitary death. 

 To the salmon-fisher can come no such bitter after- 

 thoughts. 



Of such sort are the meditations which pass through 

 my mind in this Valley of Enchantment as I bask in the 

 glorious sunshine between the early and late fishing. 

 There is no sound, save the roar of the foss, never-ceasing 

 for thousands of years, and the shrill scolding of a pair of 

 fieldfares trying to drive off a marauding magpie from 

 their brood among the alders. Of the hves of the simple, 

 kindly folk who dwell in the wide-scattered wooden houses 

 in this dale I have said no word, for how much can we 

 realise of their lives, we holiday-makers, who come later 

 than the cuckoo and fritillary and are gone before the 

 goatsuckers ? How do they pass those months of darkness 

 when the snow piles deeper and deeper under the cold 



