Field Notes and Stalking Yarns 71 
for specimens than Ross considered desirable. The idea of any man in his senses paying 
even a moment’s attention to such trifles when deer were in view was to him incom¬ 
prehensible, and shortly afterwards he let his master know this at the usual interview after 
breakfast. “ Weel, Sir Edmund, is it to be sta-alkin’ or scra-atchin’ the day?” At 
another time his opinion of England after a short visit was summed up in a few words. At 
Christmas one of his old masters, Sir Greville Smythe, had entertained him right royally with 
beef and plum pudding, and coming on to Leonardslee, Sir Edmund Loder took him a sharp 
walk up and down the hill that skirts the valley of his wild-beast preserve—one of the few 
hills in un-rugged Sussex. “ Well, what do you think of England now, Johnnie ? ” said his 
IN RAGS AND TATTERS. WILD STAGS, AUGUST 
host. “ Oh ! ” replied the old stalker, blowing like a grampus, after a fortnight’s inaction 
and high feeding, “ I didna expect to see the groond ri-isin’ and fa-allin’ so much.” 
In the old days of the solid bullet it frequently happened that the stalker, in firing at a 
stag with other beasts standing behind it, killed a hind or a staggie as well, and in Northern 
forests these unwarrantable beasts were generally given as perquisites to the stalkers. A 
friend of mine, who had a bit of Glen Strathfarrar, took to using the more fatal explosive 
bullets when they were first introduced. His forester, however, never lost an opportunity 
for deprecating their use, and at last his master asked him point-blank why he objected to 
them. The truth then leaked out. Donald was thinking of his perquisites, and, driven into 
a corner, could hardly escape confessing it. “ Aweel ye see, sur,” he said, “ there’s nae 
possible chance o’ kullin’ twa.” Another dry speech of his is worth recalling. He was out 
