81 
A Day in Larig Dochart 
on, and Landseer was posted on the spot we now occupied, to await the coming of the deer ; 
and instead of allowing the first lot to go by, he fired at a stag that was coming up the pass 
towards him, the result of which was that the deer, numbering about a thousand, clubbed 
together and broke back, to the utter ruin of the drive. The great painter was so impressed 
with the spectacle that he left his post and ran home to paint it while it was still fresh in his 
mind, and when his comrades returned to the lodge in the evening they found the chief 
event of the day so charmingly and. truthfully depicted that they readily forgave the dis¬ 
appointment he had caused them. 
Mid-day was now approaching, and as my glass presently assured me that the little 
brown specks on the Altahourn slopes were stags with some good harts amongst them, the 
fascination of the scene suddenly gave place to a conflicting emotion like that which got 
King Ahab into trouble with regard to Naboth’s vineyard. I wanted to be after them at 
once, but Grant objected. We had better try Larig Dochart, he said, since no shot had been 
fired there for a fortnight and the ground had been per¬ 
fectly undisturbed. So, after advancing cautiously for 
some 400 yards along the razor-backed ridge which 
separates the two corries, I sat down to lunch, while 
Grant crawled forward to a rock which commanded an 
extensive view of our ground, and proceeded to carefully 
examine it. He “ found ” at once, and I knew instinct¬ 
ively by the stationary position of his glass on some 
object below us, followed by short impulsive movements 
to right and left, that he had got not only one beast 
but several. All was now impatience on my part, and, 
hurriedly finishing my meal, I waited till Grant had 
slowly pushed himself into a sitting posture, when he 
proceeded to wipe the face of his glass with a red bandana 
of prodigious dimensions, while his own face assumed an 
expression of extreme seriousness. Now it was my turn to have a look, and—Yes! by 
all that was delightful, there they were, nearly a hundred deer grazing along the face of 
the hill about 300 yards below us. My glass, however, had another tale to tell. 
Running it quickly over the entire herd, they seemed to be composed, almost without excep¬ 
tion, of hinds, “ knobbers,” and brockets—not a shootable stag amongst them,—and now my 
only hope was to discover some fine “ beastie ” that I might have overlooked, or which 
might be lying half-hidden behind some sheltering hummock. With spirits sobered by 
disappointment, I was looking for this, when a voice close to my ear laconically observed, 
“That’s no the right beasties you’ve got, sir. The others are over the brow to the right.” 
It was the voice of Grant, whose digit finger told me where to look for what I wanted; and, 
taking down my glass, I saw with a thrill of exultation about seventy stags, the finest lot I had ever 
beheld, dotted about on the hill-side some 700 yards farther towards the head of the corrie. 
Rarely indeed, except in such a forest as this, could such a sight be seen. There was hardly 
an unshootable stag amongst the whole herd, and many a one that had long since reached his 
prime. Most of them were lying chewing the cud in happy ignorance of danger, and I had 
WHAT WE ARE ALL LOOKING FOR 
M 
