THE RED DEER 
for you,” he remarked, most gratuitously I thought, ‘‘ you are a vile 
Sassenach — and know nothing of stags; besides, there is one rifle at the 
house already,” and with this unpleasing comment he drifted away. 
In spite of my stultifying ignorance of all things appertaining to the 
Highlands, my hostess gave me a very kindly welcome, and at once made 
it clear to me that she would show me the Glen and its mountains. Before 
I came to Dalness I had made up my mind that I was to be contented, 
and to enjoy the scenery, and eschew all thoughts of the forest, but that 
stag shot by Hugh Cholmeley had upset me, and I was in no peaceful 
frame of mind. In fact, I was like the starving man who has delicious 
viands placed before him and is told not to eat on pain of death. This 
wretched state of things was even accentuated when the ” rifle at the 
house,” who proved to be my old friend G., turned up in the evening, 
and told us tales of ‘‘harts of grease” that could exist in no other forest 
but Dalness, and to which he added the painful rider, ‘‘ You are not going 
to be given a shot, anyway, so it does not concern you.” 
Sunday passed miserably, and in the afternoon I wandered up the glen 
for a stroll. A figure loomed out of the mist, and when it came near I saw 
it was Lord Breadalbane. 
‘‘ Hullo,” he said, ‘‘ what on earth are you doing here ? ” 
‘‘ Don’t you see,” I replied, ‘‘ I am walking about learning something 
about Glen Etive.” He roared with laughter, and with swift intuition 
grasped my unhappy plight at once. 
‘‘ Altahourn is free on Monday. You go and have a stalk on Ben McCaskie. 
The place is full of stags.” It was just like him, and I thanked him sincerely 
— but feared that it would not be possible — as I was staying in the house 
of another. 
My hostess, however, offered no objection beyond mild wonder that 
I should have been deemed worthy to set foot on a Highland deer forest, 
and so when Monday morn broke cold and clear, I walked to the lodge at 
Altahourn and met the stalker. 
There is no finer sporting estate in Great Britain than the lands of 
Taymouth, Breadalbane and the forest of Black Mount. Very little of 
it is cultivated, and it has been said that the Campbell who acquired 
these estates stopped where he ought to have begun. Taymouth, the home 
of Lord Breadalbane, is in a sheltered spot near Aberfeldy, from which 
the property extends, without a break, to the west coast — a distance of 
fifty miles. It embraces the whole of Loch Tay and the land on either side, 
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