“Poca buidhè,” which means yellow bag, is the Gaelic name of the first compartment or large bag of the stag’s stomach, and is a name used only in the case of the stag.
Macdougall signalled for the pony, and then gralloched the stag. It proved to be a very troublesome job to get the stag on to the pony, although the latter was usually very quiet under such circumstances. Macdougall said the reason for his being so restive was that he could see the very long horns. After helping the gillie and the pony-man to put the stag on the pony, Macdougall and I tried to find some other stag, but in the time still at our disposal we saw nothing more except a few hinds. Curiously enough, the weights of the 10-pointer and the Royal were exactly the same to an ounce—namely, 15 st. 7 oz. clean, without heart and liver—and were the two best heads of the season in the forest of Fealar. Macdougall, who was a stalker of long experience, told my host that he had never had so strenuous a stalk as the stalk after the Royal, and he said to me on the way home, “I shall never believe in thirteen being an unlucky number again, sir, for I found just after we had started that we had only thirteen cartridges, and very nearly went back to leave one of them at home.”
On our way down from the hill there kept ringing in my ears the familiar lines of Ruskin in A Joy for Ever, lines so true in the experience of those of us who are no longer on the threshold of life:
“It is wisely appointed for us that few of the things we desire can be had without considerable intervals of time.”
My host had also shot two stags, though he had not met with the wonderful luck I had had. No one could have been more genuinely pleased at my good fortune than he was. So ended for me the last day of the stalking season of 1913, which was one of the most enjoyable and lucky days I have ever spent in the Highlands, and will always be to me a red-letter day.
A Real Nice One.