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I heard Dougal before seeing him.

When I stood to look round the corner of the summerhouse I saw him
striding confidently down through the trees as though he was on level
ground. He was dressed as before, the only addition a green quilted
body-warmer. He had the body of a deer slung over his shoulders, a
hart. The weight of it was bowing him slightly. When he saw me, he
called out.

'Bluidy English!'

Arriving at the summerhouse steps he deposited the body on the ground
and stood panting, hands on hips.

'Not so young as once.'

He looked like a butcher. Blood from the deer had clotted on the
shoulder and front of his shirt.

'Did you kill it?' I asked.

'Want to think about that?' he asked in a menacing way.

I offered him a bottle. Without saying a word, he up-ended it. I
brought the second chair from the summerhouse and he dropped into it.
After a moment, he touched the body of the deer with his foot.

'The latin name for this beast is 'Cervus elaphus'', he said with
confidence. 'Red deer, native to Europe, Asia and northwestern Africa.
This one is a hart, male, stag if you like, not the biggest I've ever
seen. They can grow to four feet - that's one-point-two metres to
someone like you. He was a nifty dancer who fancied his chances and his
antlers were hardening, just enough to give him a prayer. Far as life
went, he lived it day by day. Every evening he'd trail his ladies, his
harem, down through the trees, keeping them just upwind to catch any
foreign scent and always on the alert for anything threatening or
dangerous. He'd feed after the others with eyes wide open and ears
pricked and when he slept, which was less than frequent, he'd still
have one eye open, just in case.'

'What happened to him?'

'Incomers arrived on the hill and claimed some of the land he'd so
freely roamed. It became harder for him to find food and look after his
ladies. So he began to take chances. Never having had much to do with
humans except for keeping them at distance he had to come close to
where they lived to feed off their scraps. Bit of a comedown for a
monarch of the glen, what? One fine evening he gets a close encounter
of the terminal kind. Because of wire fences, at night he's taken to
using the main highway, using the road to go down the hill. Going down,
he sees headlights coming up and moves into the side, seeking
concealment. Damn if he doesn't run into meshed fencing about five feet
high. He panics. Wouldn't you? He runs at the fence and tries to jump
it but all he manages is his forefeet entangled in barbed wire at the
top of it. He thrashes about and the more he struggles the worse it
gets. He gets a loop of barbed wire round his neck. He twists and
turns, this way and that and shakes his head from side to side. When he
tries to pull back the wire tightens and he strangles himself.
See?'

He turned the hart on to its back. The wire was still deeply embedded
in the ripped throat. In the reddish brown coat were cuts and scratches
matted with dark dried blood. The head lolled in the dreadfully slack
way of something recently dead. The eyes were open and dull and the
purpling tongue was protruding from an encrusted mouth.

'Some might say he killed himself, and so he did, but no one would
bother to ask why.'

'Except you.'

He shook his head. 'Not me, young sir,' he said. 'I'm going to eat the
bugger!'

End.