Amid the High Hills

by Sir Hugh Fraser

IN ACHNASHELLACH FOREST.

By Finlay Mackinnon.

In Speedy’s Natural History of Sport in Scotland with Rod and Gun there is an interesting account of a thirteen-pointer whose hind leg was broken above the hock. In the forest in Inverness-shire where this stag was, the deer were regularly fed during the winter. “When feeding commenced he came regularly as before; but in consequence of his wound he was reduced to a skeleton, and, being very weak, was kept off by the other stags. He used to hide, however, not far off, and when the others took their departure he returned to the feeding-place, when the keeper attended to him and had opportunities, with the aid of his glass, of noting the injured limb at a comparatively short distance. Within a month after feeding commenced, he was able to use it, and in three months was master of the herd.... As the new antlers grew it was found that the one on the opposite side from the broken limb was minus the brow-point.” He was shot in that season, and scaled 17 st. 12 lb. clean, being then nine years old.

I myself had a personal experience which is perhaps worth recording in this connection. I was stalking late in the season—indeed it was the last day that I was out—and we had been unable to get a shot until late in the evening, when I killed a good stag. We had some miles to go before we reached the end of the road in the forest where the motor-car from the lodge was to meet us, and the light was beginning to fail. We were high up on the side of a corrie, and were preparing to start on our homeward journey, when Sandy, the stalker, suddenly turned to me and said, pulling out his glass, “I see some deer down there on the flat.”

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.