'Thanks—but how?' whispered Holcroft.
'If the dogs bring him to bay, he may turn upon us ere another cartridge can be dropped in the barrel, and gore deep with his horns.'
English sportsmen generally prefer having the deer driven to stalking them, for the bodily exertion requisite in the latter case tries so severely every muscle and sinew; but, to the true Highland hunter, one deer shot after a long and adventurous stalk, is worth a hundred knocked over after a successful drive by gillies, when the herd is urged in wild confusion through some narrow pass well garrisoned by breech-loaders in secure ambush.
While Holcroft and Cameron crept softly forward nearer the browsing deer, the young keeper threw his plaid over the eyes of the staghound Shiuloch, and held it in by main strength, though his wrist was nearly dislocated by the strain of the leash, and the ill-suppressed whimpers of the animal were lost amid its muffling.
'Now,' whispered Angus, hoarsely, full of excitement—'now is your time, sir!'
Holcroft took a long aim; in his intense anxiety, and perhaps inspired by vanity, he overdid his aim; he fired at the precise moment Allan's shot was heard in the distant corrie, but only wounded the stag in the shoulder, and, just as he let fly the contents of the other barrel (and missed), it fled away with the speed of the wind, followed by the swift and powerful hound, which, quick as thought, Angus let slip, and both vanished down a deep glen, overhung by silver birches, close by.
'Ohone a Dhia! but he has missed it, after all—it is no use guiding a Sassenach whateffer!' muttered Angus, under his thick, ruddy moustache; yet, as Cameron could read by the expression that twinkled in his hazel eyes, secretly not ill-pleased at the result, however.
'I almost did it—hit him, at all events!' said Holcroft, with intense mortification, as he was too much of an Englishman not to wish to excel in everything that appertained to sport.
'Almost!' repeated Angus, who added to Cameron, in a low voice, "Cha d'rinse theob riomh sealg!" (i.e., Almost, never killed the game).
'Better luck next time,' said the young Laird of Stratherroch, consolingly. 'Allan has knocked over his deer, I see.'