Amid the High Hills

by Sir Hugh Fraser

The following day, Tuesday, showed no signs of improvement in the weather. Thick mist on the tops, steady rain, and a wind, as usual, in the wrong direction. Stuart was obliged to drive some miles off to see a friend, but I determined once more to try the hill. This time I was sent out on the home beat. I started off with the stalker and an old gillie named Angus, who had had so much experience that he would have made an admirable stalker, and who is always very keen. I also had two ponies and a pony boy. The pony path goes straight up the mountain-side for two and a half miles. By the time we reached the point where the path stopped we were close to the edge of the mist, and the outlook seemed hopeless. We decided to cross over the opposite hill and go down on the other side, hoping that by that time the mist might have lifted. We left instructions with the pony boy to wait for two hours, and then if he heard nothing from us to go back right round to a point on the other side of the hill and wait there. On our way up the hill I found some beautiful little bastard pimpernel in flower, not very common in this part of the country. As we worked our way up the mountain-side the wind became stronger and the rain heavier. It was intensely cold, and very difficult to see what was in front of us. Having arrived at the ridge, nearly 3000 feet up, we tried to spy the corrie below. What with the tremendous wind and driving rain this was a matter of the greatest difficulty, and in conditions of this kind I always think there is a better chance of picking up deer with first-rate field-glasses than with a telescope. I managed, with my field-glasses, to discover two stags feeding in a sheltered part of the opposite side of the corrie, and, after shifting our position in order to get a better view of them, we found that there were some hinds feeding below them. We came to the conclusion that the only chance of obtaining a shot at the stags was by getting in between them and the hinds. After some trouble we succeeded in doing this, but old Angus, who knew the corrie well, said that the wind at this place was very uncertain, and that it was a question whether the stags would not get our wind. He had hardly uttered this warning before there was a fatal puff in the wrong direction, and away went the stags long before we were near them. We decided to go on and try the next corrie. It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast than the comparative warmth and peace which we were now enjoying as compared with the strife of the elements outside the corrie. The rain, too, had stopped, and I said to the stalker, “No wonder the deer came here; what a haven of rest!”

THE FIVE SISTERS OF KINTAIL.

By Finlay Mackinnon.

We now worked our way across the ridge, and then spied the big corrie below. We discovered two lots of stags. Those in the first lot were moving on. The others were lying down in a place where they could be stalked without much difficulty; we therefore crawled some 400 or 500 yards, and, creeping cautiously up to the top of a little hill, saw the stags had got up and begun to feed. There was one quite clean about 90 yards below us, and another also clean about 130 yards from where we were lying. I fired at the near stag, who fell dead at once; I then covered the other stag and pulled the second trigger—result a missfire. I hastily reloaded and fired, killing the stag. We then went down to the stags which I had shot. The first was a six-pointer, whose horns and teeth showed him to be an old warrior. The second, a nine-pointer, was a younger beast, rather heavier. Both stags were in good condition, and weighed 13 st. 9 lb. and 14 st. 3 lb. clean. After gralloching the stags, we dragged them down the hill to a point from which we could signal to the pony boy. The ponies had long been used for carrying stags, and stood quietly whilst the stags were put on them. We soon reached the pony path, and after a walk of five miles reached the lodge.

The following day, Wednesday, it rained and blew all day, and the mists hung low on the mountains, so that it was quite useless to attempt any stalking.

The next day, Thursday, was the last day of my visit and that of Stuart. Stuart was particularly anxious to kill one more stag in the company of the second stalker, because he had killed his first stag in his company sixteen years ago in this forest, and had since then killed forty-eight stags in various forests. The day looked anything but propitious; there was mist and rain, and the wind was again in the wrong quarter. My host said he would go fishing up the glen; Stuart was sent to try one of the far beats in the company of his old friend the second stalker, whilst I was left to try the home beat again. As we went up the hill the mist gradually lifted, and we saw two huge golden eagles circling round and round. We saw no deer up to two o’clock; but whilst taking lunch we suddenly saw several stags coming round the side of a distant hill. We hastily finished our lunch and set out on what proved to be a long and exciting stalk. From time to time we had to remain lying perfectly flat, not daring to move a muscle. Once we thought every chance of success was gone, for an old cock-grouse rose with his “Go-back,” “Go-back,” as we were nearing the rock from which we hoped to get a shot. The sun, of which we had seen nothing for so long, kept coming out and going in again. On a long stalk of this kind it is extraordinary what one sees and how ineffaceable is the memory of these sights—the eagle circling over the high tops not far distant; the blue hare leisurely making off, then stopping, sitting up and looking back; the ptarmigan, so beautiful in its mottled plumage, running in front of us, stopping now and again and peering around; the old cock-grouse rising with his warning described above, which too often brings the stalk to an untimely end; the many insects, some of them so strange and weird, that we see as we lie flat gazing into a clump of grass and moss; the granite boulders sparkling in the sunlight as if studded with many diamonds—most, if not all, of these things I saw in this particular stalk. Everything, however, comes to an end, and so at last I succeeded in getting a shot at the heaviest of the stags, who was standing on the side of a very rocky and precipitous hill. He ran a few yards and fell down dead. It was, indeed, fortunate that he fell where he did, caught between two rocks, for immediately below these rocks nothing could have stopped him from rolling down a precipice of several hundred feet, and, as old Angus said, the venison would not have been worth taking home and the horns would have been smashed to atoms. The stag, an old one in good condition, was dragged down to a place where the pony could come up, and, leaving Angus to find and help the pony boy, the stalker and I started to work our way homewards across the hill. We had been moving slowly onwards, spying from time to time, when we discovered a large number of stags feeding below us. A circuitous stalk brought us up to them, but in a very awkward position. It was impossible to get a shot, except by coming up to a point at the top of the hill below which they were feeding, and we should then be much too close to them. There was, however, no choice, and after a cautious crawl we reached a point from which we could see the horns of stags moving away from us, at a distance of not more than 30 yards. Crawling as flat as possible to the top of the little hill, the stalker slowly raised his head, and as slowly lowered it. He then whispered to me, “There’s a fine stag there, but he won’t wait long, and you’d better shoot over my back.” I cautiously raised the rifle over the stalker’s back in the direction indicated, and, slowly raising my head, saw a fine stag, with a good head, standing broadside on, about 70 yards away, looking straight at me. As quickly as possible I covered the stag’s heart and pulled the trigger; there was the unmistakable thud as the bullet struck the stag, who instantly turned and disappeared. “He’ll be all right,” said the stalker; “you don’t often hear a bullet strike more distinctly than that one did,” and on reaching the point where the stag had been standing we saw him about 80 yards below, lying dead. He turned out to be a royal, with very regular points and a good head, although he was going back and had evidently been better. Like two of the four stags I had previously shot, he was an ancient warrior. The mist, which had temporarily lifted, now came down again thicker than ever, and the stalker said that we should have an awful job to get the stag down, as it was a heavy one, and the ground was very awkward. We gralloched the stag, and took out the heart and liver in order to make him as light as possible, and then set to work to get the stag down. This was a very heavy job, and I could not help thinking, as I had often thought before, what an excellent thing it would be if every one who is going to stalk, whether proprietor, tenant, or guest, were obliged some time or other to take part in dragging a stag to the place where he is to be put on the pony, and help in putting him on the pony. We succeeded at last in getting the stag down, and the stalker then arranged to wait on the pony path lower down, in order to meet old Angus and the pony boy, who would be bringing the first stag I had shot and the ponies. I took my rifle, the luncheon bag, and the sticks and glasses, and struck across the hill for the lodge. On my way down I began to speculate as to the age of the two old stags I had shot that day, and came to the conclusion that they were probably not less than fourteen or fifteen years old. The old Gaelic saying, which shows how little was formerly known as to the age of a stag, came into my mind:

Tri aois coin, aois eich;

Tri aois eich, aois duine;