THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
than those of other people — for I loathe the very name of the word “ march ” 
— the fact remains that if a man treats one like a gentleman I cannot do 
otherwise than return the compliment. 
The “ great stag ” moved into Beaufort as soon as his horns were quite 
clean and Mr Heath, whose last year of Eskadale it was, never obtained 
a shot. And now comes the “ unkindest cut of all ” to prove that virtue 
is not always rewarded. When Donald Ross told his master what a chance 
we had had to kill the stag on the second occasion, all he said was, “What 
a thousand pities Mr Millais did not shoot him.’’ Further comment is 
unnecessary. It only remains to be said that in 1892 Mr Lawrence Hardy 
took Eskadale, and a young guest who went out to look for a roe, shot the 
great stag of Eskadale, whose portrait I have given on p. 131, “ British 
Deer and their Horns.’’ 
The vagaries of chance are indeed strange, and chance pure and simple 
led me to the grand little forest of Dalness in 1897, and here it was that I 
met “ great one ’’ No. 3. It happened in this way. “ In British Deer and 
their Horns ’’ I had inserted a photograph of a very large stag which I was 
assured by one of the Black Mount stalkers who gave it to me that the picture 
was that of a wild deer in Glen Etive, part of which is owned by the Mar- 
quess of Breadalbane. Now it chanced that I discovered, after going to 
press, that the picture was taken on a small piece of ground in Glen Etive 
belonging to a Mr Greave, that the stag in question was a wild calf which 
had been retained in a semi -wild condition by being hand fed in winter. 
It could, however, roam at will, and was killed at the same place. 
This did not prevent the owner of Dalness, Mrs Stuart, who was a 
somewhat eccentric lady, from writing to tell me that I was more 
or less an idiot, that I knew nothing about deer, that she owned Glen 
Etive, and that if I cared to come and see the glen in the autumn she would 
be happy to convert me from the paths of future error. All this was very 
amusing. 
In that year, 1897, 1 had a small shooting in the Hebrides, and finding 
myself in Oban in early October I thought it would be just as easy to get 
home to Perth by driving up Glen Etive, and so via King’s House to 
Dalmally — so I sent a note to Mrs Stuart asking if she would kindly allow 
me to spend a couple of nights at Dalness and see the Glen. It was, there- 
fore, with no view to stalking that I made my way into the Argyllshire 
mountains via Connel Ferry, where I met my friend Hugh Cholmeley, 
carrying a magnificent royal he had just shot in Dalness. “ No stalking 
116 
