We often lived in bothies at opposite ends of the
forest, returning to the lodge on Saturday till Monday
morning. For a sportsman, no life could be more enjoyable.
I was my own stalker, taking a couple of gillies for the
ponies, but finding the deer for myself - always the most
difficult part of the sport - and stalking them for myself.
I may here observe that, not very long after I married,
qualms of conscience smote me as to the justifiability of
killing, AND WOUNDING, animals for amusement's sake. The
more I thought of it, the less it bore thinking about.
Finally I gave it up altogether. But I went on several years
after this with the deer-stalking; the true explanation of
this inconsistency would, I fear, be that I had had enough of
the one, but would never have enough of the other - one's
conscience adapts itself without much difficulty to one's
inclinations.
Between my host and myself, there was a certain amount of
rivalry; and as the head forester was his stalker, the
rivalry between our men aroused rancorous jealousy. I think
the gillies on either side would have spoilt the others'
sport, could they have done so with impunity. For two
seasons, a very big stag used occasionally to find its way
into our forest from the Black Mount, where it was also
known.
