Part 18

In a moment he had his glass on them, and said: “Would you be liking another stag? There’s a fine stag with hinds, and we shall not be long getting down to them. It’s been poor sport to-day.”

I hesitated for a moment, and then, I am afraid, considering how late it was, weakly yielded to the temptation. I said: “All right! We shall have to be quick, otherwise we shall not be able to see what we are doing.” We soon decided our method of approach, and lost no time in getting down the hill. The deer were feeding on a small flat piece of ground near the ruins of what had been a watcher’s cottage many years ago, and we hoped, by getting into a broad and fairly deep burn, to reach a point about 200 yards further down, from which I could get a shot. The water was sometimes up to our waists and bitterly cold, and our movements were necessarily slow, but we arrived at last at a point which was about 140 yards from the stag. Peering over the top of the bank of the burn, we saw that the stag was on the far side of the hinds from us, and was lying down in a dip of the ground, so that only the tops of his horns were visible. After we had been waiting in the burn for some time, the stag got up, and, without giving me a chance for a shot, walked on to lower ground, where he began to feed in such a position that it was impossible to see him until he put his head up, and then we could only see the upper part of his horns. After a few minutes I whispered: “I really can’t wait here any longer, it is so frightfully cold, and the light will soon be gone. Let us get out of the burn and chance our being seen: at any rate, we shall be higher up there, and be more likely to see the stag.”

We cautiously hoisted ourselves out of the burn on to the flat ground on the top of the bank, but even there could only see the stag’s horns and a very small part of his head.

Sandy whispered to me: “You will have to shoot off my back, sir; it is the only chance.” He carefully raised his back, and I put the rifle over it. I said: “I am too low now; I can’t see the stag’s body.”

“Ye’ll just have to put the coat on my back,” said Sandy, pushing towards me my rolled-up shooting-cape, which was fastened up with a strap. I hoisted the rolled-up cape on to Sandy’s back, and then prepared for a shot by putting the rifle on the top of the cape--an extraordinarily foolish proceeding. What I certainly ought to have done was to have stood straight up and fired at the stag from my shoulder. However, I took my shot in the position described, and something, I don’t know what exactly, caused me to pull off.

“His hind leg is broken,” said Sandy, as away went the stag and the rest of the deer. I instantly handed him the rifle, as I knew he was a first-class shot at running deer, and told him, if he could get the chance, to finish the stag off.

After a short interval I heard a shot, and then a second shot. Soon afterwards Sandy returned, and said, “You’ll never see him again, sir. I never touched him.”

It was almost dark, and we started on our homeward journey along the narrow foot-track through the forest. Sandy asked me to walk first so that I could go at my own pace. He followed me, and behind him came the gillie, there being only room to walk in single file. It is not easy to carry on a conversation with any one who is walking behind, nor did the fact that I felt very depressed at having left the wounded stag in suffering, perhaps to die a painful, lingering death, make it any easier. At first I made an occasional observation and then lapsed into silence. As I was walking along engrossed in my melancholy thoughts I noticed that the path was becoming more and more difficult to see, and indeed hardly visible in the growing darkness.

I said, “It’s getting awfully dark, and I can hardly see the path.” No answer. I turned round: neither of the men was to be seen. I stopped and shouted loudly, “Sandy!” Still no answer. This I repeated several times with the same result. I then began to think what I had better do. It was almost dark by this time. I was in the heart of one of the largest forests in the North of Scotland, miles from any human habitation, without a scrap of food, with an empty flask, and soaked to the skin up to my waist through wading and standing in the burn, which was in flood.

I decided to retrace my steps to the old ruins of the watcher’s cottage from which we had started. Taking great care not to lose the path, I began to do this, shouting now and then but hearing no reply. I tried to think out why the men should not have been following me on this path on which I was now returning, and which ran beside a broad burn which was in spate. I then remembered that the path which I had been following across the forest before I came to the burn was almost at right angles both to the burn and the path I was now on, and it occurred to me that possibly the path which I ought to have taken lay straight across the burn, and that the men might have crossed the burn and gone in that direction. I had, I knew, been walking, as I always do on these occasions, very fast, and this made me think it not unlikely, especially as it was so dark, that the men had assumed that I had crossed the burn in front of them. Being careful not to lose the narrow track I was on in the darkness, I discovered the point at which I had turned up the burn-side, and found that the other path leading up to the burn was a little wider, which encouraged me to hope that my supposed explanation might prove to be the true one. I then waded across the burn and found there was a path at right angles to it on the other side which looked more used than the track which I had just left. I therefore made up my mind to follow this path for a time, shouting every now and then in the hope that the men might hear me, and if I did not hear any reply I would then consider whether I would go on or retrace my steps to the old ruins and there spend the night--a cheerful prospect indeed.

After going some distance along the path I suddenly heard what I thought was the sound of shouting a long way off. I stopped and shouted more loudly than ever, and then heard the shouts coming nearer, and very soon after Sandy and the gillie appeared. It turned out that what I had supposed had happened, and that they had crossed the burn thinking that I was still in front of them.

I have never since then, on my return from stalking, walked in front of the stalker along a path which I do not know. This unpleasant incident made us later than ever, and I did not get back to the lodge until nearly 10 P.M.

The following season I was again stalking in the same forest, and on my first day was on the same beat where I had had the misfortune to wound the stag, as described above, and the same stalker was once more with me. I asked him whether he had heard anything of the wounded stag, and he replied, “Nothing whatever,” adding that although he was sure that the near hind leg was broken, he could not be sure in the darkness at what part exactly, but he thought it was low down.

We began by spying a corrie, which was about three miles from the place where I had wounded the stag in the previous season, and presently found five shootable stags which were together. After watching them for a time, Sandy said, “There are two much bigger than the others--one a dark beast; he’s a good stag, with only one horn.”

“All right!” I said. “Let’s shoot him; he’ll be interesting anyhow.”

We then stalked the stags and managed to get within about 120 yards of them. As soon as I got a good view of the beasts I noticed that the stag with one horn was limping slightly, and it flashed through my mind that he was almost certainly the stag which I had wounded in the previous season, particularly as he was the same colour and the horn seemed to me to be very similar to what I recollected of the horns of the wounded stag. Whilst these thoughts were rapidly passing through my mind, Sandy whispered, “Don’t take the stag with one horn, sir, but the yellow stag on the right which is a much better beast.”

By FINLAY MACKINNON.]

I replied by shooting the dark-coloured stag--this time in the right place.

“You’ve shot the wrong beast!” said Sandy. I said, “Oh, no I haven’t. You were with me last time I fired my rifle, and I then fired it at that very stag; let us have a look at him and see if I’m not right.”

On examining the stag we found that low down on his near hind leg the bone had evidently been fractured just above the fetlock, but had healed completely and set in the most wonderful way. This, of course, was what had caused the limp which I had noticed, and also the absence of the horn on the other side of the head. After examining the stag, Sandy quite agreed that there was no doubt it must be the same stag, and we both thought, although it was in very good condition, that it was at least a stone lighter than it had been in the previous season.

It is interesting to note that in the case of stags, as in that of human beings, the muscular movements are controlled by nerve centres which are situated on the opposite side of the brain.

XVII

THE SECRET OF THE HIGH HILLS

“I shall never forget that day, or the self-sacrifice and bravery of those men in that Brigade.” The speaker was a chaplain attached to one of the Highland Brigades which had been fighting in France. “We were told that a particular position had to be taken, and the work was allotted to certain of the Highland regiments. My work was to attend the dying after the attack was over and the position carried at the point of the bayonet. Amongst them was a piper who had shown extraordinary bravery in the assault, and who, though wounded three times, had persisted in carrying on and playing his pipes until he fell mortally wounded just as the assault, after very heavy fighting, was proving successful. He knew he was dying, and gave me messages for his wife and family. He was evidently a man of strong faith, and had no fear of death. Just before his valiant spirit passed away, he whispered, ‘Oh, if I could only see the high hills again before I die.’ His words deeply impressed me, and I have often thought of them since.”

This story of the dying piper, told to me in such simple and touching language, set me thinking and wondering. I could not help feeling that those last words of the gallant Highlander would strike a sympathetic chord in the hearts not only of those whose most cherished and sacred memories are bound up with the Highlands of Scotland, but of countless numbers of others who also love that country. In the days of peace I had often pondered over the irresistible fascination of this call from the North.

The Highlands of Scotland! Is there any one who has ever seen them, or who knows even slightly something of their romantic and enchanting history, who can fail to understand the passionate devotion of any one with Highland blood in his veins to that wonderful land?

“All the world over the sons of the heather and the mist, in however distant or alien lands they may be, feel always, as they steer their way through life, that there is a pole-star by which they set their compass; and that some day, perhaps, they or their children may steer the boat to a haven on some rocky shore, where the whaup calls shrilly on the moors above the loch, and the heather grows strong and tough on the hill-side, and the peat reek rises almost like the incense of an evening prayer against a grey, soft sky in the land of the north.”

From the lone shieling on the misty island Mountains divide us, and a waste of seas. Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is highland, And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.