“It is my usual luck,” said he, in despair.  “If I had had my rifle in my hand, we should never have got within a hundred yards of the beast.  But I got an awful fright.  I never before saw a live seal just in front of one’s nose like that.”

“You would have missed him,” said Macleod, coolly.

“At a dozen yards?”

“Yes.  When you come on one so near as that, you are too startled to take aim.  You would have blazed away and missed.”

“I don’t think so,” said Ogilvie, with some modest persistence.  “When I shot that stag, I was steady enough, though I felt my heart thumping away like fun.”

“There you had plenty of time to take your aim—­and a rock to rest your rifle on.”  And then he added:  “You would have broken Hamish’s heart, Ogilvie, if you had missed that stag.  He was quite determined you should have one on your first day out; and I never saw him take such elaborate precautions before.  I suppose it was terribly tedious to you; but you may depend on it it was necessary.  There isn’t one of the younger men can match Hamish, though he was bred a sailor.”

“Well,” Mr. Ogilvie admitted, “I began to think we were having a great deal of trouble for nothing; especially when it seemed as though the wind were blowing half a dozen ways in the one valley.”

“Why, man,” Macleod said, “Hamish knows every one of those eddies just as if they were all down on a chart.  And he is very determined, too, you shall have another stag before you go, Ogilvie; for it is not much amusement we have been giving you since you came to us.”

“That is why I feel so particularly jolly at the notion of having to go back,” said Mr. Ogilvie, with very much the air of a schoolboy at the end of his holiday.  “The day after to-morrow, too!”

“To-morrow, then, we will try to get a stag for you; and the day after you can spend what time you can at the pools in Glen Muick.”

These last two days were right royal days for the guest at Castle Dare.  On the deer-stalking expedition Macleod simply refused to take his rifle with him and spent all his time in whispered consultations with Hamish, and with eager watching of every bird whose solitary flight along the mountain-side might startle the wary hinds.  After a long day of patient and stealthy creeping, and walking through bogs and streams, and slow toiling up rocky slopes, the party returned home in the evening; and when it was found that a splendid stag—­with brow, bay, and tray, and crockets complete—­was strapped on to the pony, and when the word was passed that Sandy the red-haired and John from the yacht were to take back the pony to a certain well-known cairn where another monarch of the hills lay slain, there was a great rejoicing through Castle Dare, and Lady Macleod herself must needs come out to shake hands with her guest, and to congratulate him on his good fortune.

“It is little we have been able to do to entertain you,” said the old silver-haired lady, “but I am glad you have got a stag or two.”