THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
imagination reality. Some one of us may in our lives see nearly all that 
Landseer depicted except his more than “record ’’ heads and be satisfied, 
whilst others may not experience such good fortune. In any case we owe a 
never ending debt to the great artist for giving us the charm of the moun- 
tains and, as Barrie says, “The greatest thing in the world is charm.’* 
Charles St John, laboriously paring his lead bullet to fit the barrel of his 
smoothbore, whilst the “ muckle hart ’’ awaited the coup de grace; Scrope 
scurrying breathless to the foaming pool whilst Bran and Oscar yelped at 
the lowered head of the baying stag in the shallows of the Tilt; Landseer’s 
inspiring pictures of the stag at bay in the waters of Loch Tulla, “ Night,’’ 
“ Morning,’’ “ The Deer Drive ’’ — and many other s^ — all afford vivid 
representations of the stirring scenes of hill and loch which stirred the 
blood of the early -Victorian deer-stalkers. Sport it was, certainly of an 
entirely different kind from that of to-day, being akin to the chase of 
the elk with the “los-hund ’’ as conducted in Sweden, but sport of an 
intense character that appealed to youth, and health, and strength 
of lung and limb. Certainly not without its savage lust of blood, but 
of the kind that young men love and old men remember. I made an 
atrocious shot once at Guisachan, but before the day was out how 
glad I was that I had done so, for it gave me a chase that I would 
not have missed for anything, and all the savage joy of hunting a beast 
myself and running it to bay. I confess it was brutal, but we are all 
brutes sometimes. 
Away up on the top of the Dun hill we found two good stags at one 
o’clock, but they were in a difficult position, and it was five before we 
got in, and I had rather a hurried shot at the best as they moved slowly 
away. I hit the stag, a nice 10-pointer, too low and far back, and away he 
went towards Glen Moriston at a good pace. The gillie, with one of the 
yellow Guisachan retrievers, now came up, and old “ Ben,’’ a savage, ill- 
tempered beast, was slipped on the trail. The retriever took the spoor 
at Once, and I easily kept with him for the first mile. I was young then 
and could run, whilst the added lust of the chase inspired me. Soon old 
Duncan Kennedy, the stalker, was left far behind, and the gillie and I ran 
together for another two miles. Then my companion eased up, and I 
continued another half-mile, just keeping in sight the gallant dog, which 
seemed to lope along at a tireless speed. The yellow spot would now 
come into view less often, and I began to feel the effects of the run, when 
all at once I struck a large burn, which flowed into the Moriston river, and 
62 
