“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 gratitude.  “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.”

“And do you call that a good head to get stuffed Roderick?” the young man asked, still gazing on his splendid prize.

“Aw, well, I hef seen better heads, and I hef seen worse heads,” the keeper said, evasively.  “But the velvet is off the horns whatever.”