Prince Fortunatus Part 21

Suddenly Roderick stopped short, and quietly put out his hand to arrest the progress of his companions. Involuntarily they stooped; and he not only did likewise, but presently he was on his back on the heather, with the telescope balanced as before. After a long and earnest scrutiny, he offered the gla.s.s to Lionel.

"They're there," he said, "but in an ahfu' bad place for us."

Eagerly Lionel got hold of the telescope and tried to balance it as the keeper had done; but either his hand was trembling, or the wind had a purchase on the long tube, or he was unaccustomed to its use; at all events he could make out nothing but nebulous and uncertain patches of color.

"Tell me where they are," he said, quickly, as he put aside the gla.s.s.

"I have good eyes."

"Do you see the gray scar on the hillside yonder?--then right below that the rocks--and then the open place--can you see them now? Ay, and there's not a single hind with them--"

"They're all stags?" exclaimed Lionel, breathlessly.

"Every one," said Roderick. "And when there's no hinds with them, it is easier to get at them, for they're not near so wary as the hinds; but that is a bad place where they are feeding the now--a terrible bad place. I'm thinking it is no use to try to get near them there; but they will keep feeding on and on until they get over the ridge; and what we will do now is we will chist go aweh down wind, and get round to them from anither airt."

It was little that Lionel knew what was involved in this apparently simple scheme. At first everything was easy enough; for, when they had fallen back out of sight of the deer, they merely set forth upon a long walk down wind, going erect, without any trouble. It is true that Lionel in time began to think that the keeper, instead of having the deer in mind, was bent on a pilgrimage into Cromarty or Sutherland, or perhaps towards the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic; but this interminable tramp was a mere trifle compared with their labors when they began to go up wind again. For now there was nothing but stooping and crawling and slouching behind hillocks, up peat-hags, and through marshy swamps; while the heat produced by all this painful toil was liable to a sudden chill whenever a halt was called to enable Roderick to writhe his prostrate figure up to the top of some slight eminence, where, raising his head inch by inch, he once more informed himself of the whereabouts of the deer.

There seemed to be no end to this snake-like squirming along the ground and creeping behind rocks and hillocks; in fact, they were now in a quite different tract of country from that in which they had first caught sight of the stags--a much more wild and sombre landscape was this, with precipitous black crags overhanging a sullen and solitary loch that had not a bush or a tree along its lifeless sh.o.r.es. As for Lionel, he fought along without repining. His arms were soaking wet up to the elbows; his legs were in a like condition from the knee downward.

Then he was damp with perspiration; while ever and anon, when he had to lie p.r.o.ne in the moist gra.s.s, or crouch like a frog behind a rock, the cold wind from the hills sent a s.h.i.+ver down his spine or seemed to strike like an icy dagger through his chest. But he took it all as part of the day's work. There was in his possession a little silver token that afforded him much content. He would acquit himself like a man--if he could; at any rate, he would not grumble.

After what seemed ages of this inconceivable torture, Lionel was immensely relieved to find the keeper, after a careful survey from the top of a mound to which he had crawled, motion with his hand to him to come up to his side. This he did with the greatest circ.u.mspection, scarcely raising his head above the gra.s.s and heather; and then, when he had joined Roderick, he began to peer through the waving stalks and twigs just before his eyes. Suddenly his gaze was arrested by certain brown tips--tips that were moving; were these the stags' horns, he asked himself, in a kind of bewilderment of fear? There could be no doubt of it. The beasts were now lying down--he could not see their bodies--but clearly enough he could make out their branching antlers, as they lazily moved their heads, or perhaps turned to flick a fly away.

"They're too far off, aren't they?" Lionel whispered--and, despite all his sworn resolves to keep calm, he felt his heart going as if it would choke him.

"They're lying down now," Roderick said, with professional coolness, "and they're right out in the open; it is no use at all trying to get near them until they get up in the afternoon and begin to feed again, and then maybe they will feed over the shoulder yonder. No use at all,"

said he; but just at this moment his quick eye caught sight of something else that had just appeared on the edge of one of the lower slopes, and the expression of his face instantly changed--into something like alarm.

"Bless me, look at that now!"

Lionel slowly and cautiously turned his head; and then, quite clearly, he could see a small company of seven or eight stags that had come along from quite a different direction. They paused at the crest of the slope, looking all about them.

"Was ever anything so mischievous?" Roderick exclaimed, in smothered vexation. "If they come over this way they will get our wind; and then it is good-bye to all of them. And we cannot get away neither--well, well, was there ever the like now? There is only the one chance--mebbe they will go along to the others, and keep with them till they begin feeding in the afternoon. Indeed, now, it is a terrible peety if we are to miss such a chance--and not a hind anywhere to be on the watch!"

Happily, however, Roderick's immediate fears were soon dispelled. The new-comers slowly descended the slope; then they bore up the valley again; and after walking about awhile, they followed the example of the rest of the herd and lay down on the heather.

"Ay, ay, that is better now," Roderick said, with much satisfaction.

"That is ferry well now. And since there is nothing to be done till the whole of them get up to feed in the afternoon, we will chist creep aweh into a peat-hag and wait there, and you can have your lunch, sir."

So there was another crawling performance down from this exposed height; and eventually the small party managed to hide themselves in a black and moist peat-hag, where their extremely frugal repast was produced.

"But look here, Roderick," Lionel said, "it's only twelve o'clock now; do you mean to say we have to stop in this wet hole till two or three in the afternoon?"

"Ay, chist that," the keeper said, coolly. "They will begin to feed about three; and until they go over the ridge, it is no use at all trying to get near them."

"And what are we to do all the time?"

"Chist wait," Roderick said, with much simplicity; and then he and the gillie withdrew a little way down the peat-hag, so that they might have their luncheon and a cautious whispering in Gaelic by themselves.

It was tantalizing in the last degree. The breathless consciousness that the deer were close by made him all the more impatient for the half-dreaded opportunity of having a shot at one of them. He wished it was well over. If he were going to miss, he wanted to have his agony of mortification encountered and done with, instead of enduring this maddening delay. The peat-hag became a prison; and a very uncomfortable prison, too. His sandwiches were soon disposed of; thereafter--what? He dared not smoke; he had no book with him; the keeper and the gillie, having withdrawn themselves, were exchanging confidences in their native tongue. His clothes were wet and cold and clammy; Percy Lestrange's flask appeared to afford him no comfort whatever. And of course the longer he brooded over the chances of hit or miss, the more appalling became the responsibility. How much depended on that fifteenth part of a second! He was half inclined to say, "Here, Roderick, I can bear this anxiety no longer. Let us get as near the deer as we can; sight the rifle for a long distance, you whistle the stags on to their legs--and I'll blaze into the thick of them. Anything to get the shot over and done with!"

Indeed, this intolerable waiting was about as bad a thing as could have happened to his nerves; but it did not last quite as long as the keeper had antic.i.p.ated; for about two o'clock Roderick ascertained that the stags were up again and feeding. This was good news--anything was good news, in fact, that broke in upon this sickening suspense; had Lionel been informed that the deer had taken alarm and disappeared at full gallop, he would have said "Amen!" and set out for home with a light heart. But, by and by, when it was discovered that the stags had gone over the ridge--one of them remained on the crest for a long time, staring right across the valley, so that the stalkers dared not move hand or foot--when this last sentinel had also withdrawn, the slouching and skulking devices of the morning had to be resumed. Not a word was spoken; but Lionel knew that the fateful moment was approaching. Then, when they began to ascend the ridge over which the stags had disappeared, their progress culminated in a laborious crawl, Roderick going first, with the rifle in one hand, Lionel dragging himself after, the gillie coming on as best he might. It was slow work now. The keeper went forward inch by inch, as if at any moment he expected to find a stag staring down upon him. And at last he lay quite still; then, with the slightest movement of his disengaged hand, he beckoned Lionel to come up beside him.

Now was the time for all his desperate and summoned calmness. He shut his lips firm, breathing only by his nose; he gradually pushed his way through the tall, withered gra.s.s; and at last, when he was almost side by side with Roderick, he peered forward. They were startlingly near, those brown and dun beasts with the branching antlers!--he almost shrank back--and yet he gazed and gazed with a strange fascination. The stags, which were not more than fifty or sixty yards off, were quite unconscious of any danger; they were quietly feeding; sometimes one of them would cease and raise his head and look lazily around. Just at this moment, too, a pale sunlight began to s.h.i.+ne over the plateau on which they stood; and a very pretty picture it lit up--the silver-gray rocks, the wide heath, and those slim and elegant creatures grouped here and there as chance directed. Every single feature of the scene (as he discovered long thereafter) was burned into Lionel's brain; yet he was not aware of it at the time; his whole attention, as he imagined, was directed towards keeping himself cool and restrained and ready to obey Roderick's mute directions. The rifle was stealthily given to him, and as stealthily pushed through the gra.s.s. With his fore-finger the keeper indicated the stag at which Lionel was to fire; it was rather lighter in color than the others, and was standing a little way apart. Lionel took time to consider, as he thought; in reality it was to still the quick pulsation of his heart; and as he did so the stag, unfortunately for him, moved, so that, instead of offering him an easy broadside shot, it almost faced him, with its head down. Still, at any moment it might afford a fairer mark; and so, with the utmost caution, and with his lips still shut tight, he slowly raised himself somewhat, and got the rifle into his hands. Yes, the stag had again moved; its shoulder was exposed; his eyes inquired of Roderick if now was the time; and the keeper nodded a.s.sent.

The awful crisis had arrived; and he seemed to blind himself and deaden himself to all things in this mortal world except the little notch in the rifle, the s.h.i.+ning sight, and that fawn-colored object over there.

He took a long breath; he steadied and steadied the slightly trembling barrel until it appeared perfectly motionless; and then--he fired!

Alas! at the very moment that he pulled the trigger--when it was too late for him to change his purpose--the stag threw up its head to flick at its side with its horns, and thus quite altered its position; he knew he ought not to fire--but it was too late--too late--and in the very act of pulling the trigger he felt that he had missed.

Roderick sprang to his feet; for the deer, notwithstanding that they could not have discerned where the danger lay, with one consent bounded forward and made for a rocky defile on the farther side of the plateau.

"Come on, sir! Come on, sir!" the keeper called to Lionel. "You've hit him. Come along, sir!"

"I haven't hit him--I missed--missed clean!" was the hopeless answer.

"I tell ye ye've hit him!" the keeper exclaimed. "Run, sir, run!--if he's only wounded he may need the other barrel. G.o.d bless me, did ye not hear the thud when the ball struck?"

Thus admonished Lionel unwittingly, but nevertheless as quickly as he could, followed the keeper; and he could show a nimble pair of heels when he chose, even when he was hampered with this heavy rifle. Not that he had any heart in the chase. The stag had swerved aside just as he fired; he knew he must have missed. At the same time any one who goes out with a professional stalker must be content to become as clay in the hands of the potter; so Lionel did as he was bid; and though he could not overtake Roderick, he was not far behind him when they both reached the pa.s.s down which the deer had fled.

And there the splendid animals were still in view--bounding up a stony hillside some distance off, in straggling twos and threes, and going at a prodigious speed. But where was the light-colored stag? Certainly not among those brown beasts whose scrambling up that steep face was sending a shower of stones and debris down into the silent glen below.

"I'm thinking he's no far aweh," Roderick said, eagerly scanning all the ground in front of them. "We'll chist go forrit, sir; and you'll be ready to shoot, for, if he's only wounded, he may be up and off again when he sees us."

"But do you really think I hit him?" Lionel said, anxiously enough.

"I _sah_ him struck," the keeper said, emphatically. "But he never dropped--no, not once on his knees even. He was off with the best of them; and that's what meks me think he was well hit, and that he's no far aweh."

So they went forward on the track of the herd, slowly, and searching every dip and hollow. For Lionel it was a period of agonizing uncertainty. One moment he would buoy himself up with the a.s.surance that the keeper must know; the rest he convinced himself that he had missed the stag clean. Now he would be wondering whether this wide, undulating plain really contained the slain monarch of the mists; again he pictured to himself that light-colored, fleet-footed creature far away in advance of all his companions, making for some distant sanctuary among the mountains.

"Here he is, sir!" Roderick cried, with a quick little chuckle; and the words sent a thrill through Lionel such as he had never experienced in his life before. "No--he's quite dead," the keeper continued, seeing that the younger man was making ready to raise his rifle again. "I was thinking he was well hit--and no far aweh."

At the same moment Lionel had eagerly run forward. With what joy and pride--with what a curious sense of elation--with what a disposition of good-will towards all the world--he now beheld this splendid beast lying in the deep peat-hag that had hitherto hidden it from view. The stag's last effort had been to clear this gully; but it had only managed to strike the opposite bank with its forefeet when the death-wound did its work, and then the hapless animal had rolled back with its final groan into the position in which they now found it. In a second, Roderick was down in the peat-hag beside it, holding up its head by one of the horns, and examining the bulletmark.

"Well, sir," said he, with a humorous smile that did not often lighten up his visage, "if this is what you will be calling the missing of a stag, it is a ferry good way to miss it; for I never sah a better shot in my life."

"It's a fluke, then, Roderick; I declare to you I was certain I had missed," said he--though he hardly knew what he was saying; a kind of bewilderment of joy possessed him--he could not keep his eyes off the dead stag--and now, if he had only chanced to notice it, his hand was certainly trembling. Probably Roderick did not know what a fluke was; in any case his response was:

"Well, sir, I'm chist going to drink your good health; ay, and more good luck to you, sir; and it's ferry glad I am that you hef got your first stag!" and therewith he pulled out his small zinc flask.

"Oh, but you mustn't draw on your own supplies!" Lionel exclaimed, in the fulness of his pride and grat.i.tude. "See, here is a flask filled with famous stuff. You take it--you and Alec; I don't want any more to-day."

"Do not be so sure of that," the keeper said, shrewdly, and he modestly declined to take Percy Lestrange's decorated flask. "It's a long walk from home we are; far longer than you think; and mebbe there will be some showers before we get back home."

"I don't care if there's thunder and lightning all the way!" Lionel cried, gayly. "But I'll tell you what, Roderick, I wish you'd lend me your pipe. Have you plenty of tobacco? A cigarette is too feeble a thing to smoke by the side of a dead stag. And--and on my way south I mean to stop at Inverness, and I'll send you as much tobacco as will last you right through the winter; for you see I'm very proud of my first stag--and, of course, it was all owing to your skill in stalking."

Roderick handed the young man his pipe and pouch.

"Indeed, you could not do better, sir, than sit down and hef a smoke, while me and Alec are gralloching the beast. Then we'll drag him to a safe place, and cover him up with heather, and send for him the morn's morning."

"Couldn't you put him on the pony and take him down with us? I can walk," Lionel suggested; for had he not some dim vision in his mind of a triumphal procession down the strath, towards the dusk of the evening, with perhaps a group of fair spectators awaiting him at the door of the lodge?

"Well, sir," the keeper made answer, as he drew out his gralloching knife, "you see, there's few things more difficult than to strap a deer on the back of a powny when there's no proper deer-saddle. No, sir, we'll just leave him in a safe place for the night and send for him in the morning."