Allan laughed, too; but now, when among his native mountains and the scenes of his childhood, he could not help old Scottish impressions returning to him, though certainly the ranks of his regiment were the last place in which he was likely to forget them.
The silver-haired and silver-bearded old game-keeper, Dugald Glas (whose real name was Mackinnon), a hawk-eyed Celt, with a weather-beaten visage, and bare knees that were brown as mahogany, now urged silence and no more smoking. He had discovered by the aid of his binoculars a couple of deer grazing, but pretty far apart, upon the hill-side; and once again by private signal the two parties began mutually their stealthy approach upward in the two corries that concealed them in the forest, for so it was called, though destitute now of trees.
'A forest, as the word was strictly taken in ancient times,' says Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, 'could not be in the hands of anyone but the king, yet in later periods forests have become the property of subjects, or have been erected by them, though without being protected by forest laws. The royal forest in the Isle of Wight, in which there is not a single tree, is not the only English example remaining of the view taken of this old meaning of the word.' Hence, he adds, 'Let not the Cockney suppose that the word forest necessarily implies a district covered with oaks, chestnuts, or trees of any other description.'
A powerful and gigantic staghound, wiry, sinewy, and iron-grey—the noble dog that Landseer loved to depict—saw the deer already without the aid of glasses and strained hard upon his leash, an iron chain, which was twisted round the muscular wrist of the old keeper, who soothed and patted him, while muttering in Gaelic, 'Mar e Bran, is e braithair!' (If it is not Bran, it is his brother), alluding to Fingal's favourite staghound, which he was thought to resemble, as his hair was iron-grey, his feet were yellow, with erect ears of a ruddy tinge.
The forenoon was brilliantly clear, so the deer-stalkers had not the weather to contend with, as that, if untoward, may render all strategy vain.
Lord Aberfeldie and his son were as well aware as their skilled old keeper that in stalking the chief things to regard are the eyes and nose of the deer. His vision, quick as that of an eagle, can detect a human head above a ridge of rock or belt of bracken, and he can scent an intruder on his 'native heath,' if the breeze blows from the former, at a wonderful distance; and old Dugald Glas, who had brought the father and son to the forest at dawn with us much care and secresy as if an assassination was in hand, had long scanned the vicinity with his glasses before he discovered the stags in question, and gave the concealed stalkers the signal to approach them.
The two animals were rather far apart; both were quietly feeding, and—as the season was considerably advanced—both in colour were marvellously like the grey stone and brown heather around them, and both were, as yet, all unalarmed as Lord Aberfeldie, the Master, and Dugald Glas, while pausing and holding ever and anon a council of war in low whispers, crept up the stony corrie, keeping carefully to leeward of the quarry they had selected, leaving Cameron of Stratherroch and Hawke Holcroft to approach the other as best they might; but it was in the present instance absolutely necessary that both parties should fire at the same instant, or one of the stags would vanish at a gallop, perhaps to the most distant limit of the forest.
In crawling after such game the head must be foremost when going up a hill, and the feet foremost when going down, and the stalker must creep on his stomach and knees; and all this, when done in the kilt, over rough rocks, sharply-pointed heather, and mossy bog, is not to be effected without considerable toil and even discomfort.
Nearly an hour of this kind of work had gone on, the father and son creeping side by side, softly and in silence, dragging their rifles after them, old Dugald following in the same fashion, with Bran straining on his iron chain; and once or twice they had actually to traverse the bed of a mountain burn that brawled hoarsely downward over its brown-worn pebbles and boulders.
The stag was still feeding quietly, and all unconscious of the approach of death; and the stalkers were, they thought, within a safe distance now, and that it could not escape them; so Dugald Glas dropped behind, after whispering to the Master in Gaelic,