htened off his expedition by tales of
its monotonous sufferings and dire fatigues. This was something better
than arranging an out-of-door performance for a parcel of amateurs!
Stiff and sore he was, his clothes were mostly soaked and caked with
mire, and he did not know what he had not done to his shins and knees
and elbows; but he did not mind all that; Honnor Cunyngham was right--as
he rode down Strathaivron that evening towards the lodge, it would not
be of fatigues and privations he would be thinking! it would be of the
lordly stag left away up there in the hills, to be sent for and brought
down in triumph the next day.

By the time they had got the stag conveyed to a place of concealment,
and carefully covered over with heather, the afternoon was well
advanced; then they set out for the little corrie in which the pony had
been left. But Lionel was now to discover that they had come much
farther into these wilds than he had imagined; indeed, when they at
length came upon the stolid and unconcerned Maggie, he did not in the
least regret that it was a riding-saddle, not a deer-saddle, they had
brought with them in the morning. He had offered to walk these remaining
eight miles in order to have the proud satisfaction of taking the stag
home with them; now he was just as well content that it was he, and not
the slain deer, that Maggie was to carry down to Strathaivron. So he lit
another cigarette, got into the saddle, and with a light heart set forth
upon the long and tedious jog-jog down towards the region of comparative
civilization.

Yet it was hardly so tedious, after all. He was mentally going over
again and again every point and incident of the day's thrilling
experiences; and now it seemed as if it were a long time since he had
been squirming through the heather, with all his limbs aching, and his
heart ready to burst. He recalled that beautiful picture of the stags
feeding on the lonely plateau; he wondered now that he was able to
steady the rifle-barrel until it ceased to be tremulous; he asked
himself whether he had not in reality pulled the trigger just before the
stag swerved its head aside. And what would have been his feelings now,
supposing he had missed? Riding home in silence and dejection--trying to
account for the incomprehensible blunder--fearing to think of what he
would have to say to the people at the lodge. And he was not at all
sorry to reflect that, as soon as the little party got back home,