I could sense that Louise was disturbed, as far as she could be, a
more fitting interpretation of her behaviour might be that she was
calculating and recalculating the odds of traversing this mysterious
enclosure without mishap and devising a strategy with which to
accomplish it. My experience with large carnivorous birds is very
limited, but I did know that for solitary hunters Louise presented far
too large a prey object to be taken down and rendered limb from limb,
and of course what would be in it for them - apart from me, I thought
with a shudder. On the other hand a whole flock of these lethally
rostrous bipeds might well attempt to overpower her for the sake of
the fleshy kernel, like thrushes battering snails on polite suburban
patios. I could hear my screams and Louise's sympathetic lowing
arching through the forest to the castle windows - "What's that terrible
noise?" one distinguished guest asks another. "Just the rutting
season, you know," comes the reply. "One of the little drawbacks of
the Cairngorms. Best not to go out without a gilly." Meanwhile I would
be fought over by this savage crowd, pinned to the ground by sickle
claws as they competed to tear my head off, while others busied
themselves with my bowels in an unselfconscious reenactment of the
punishment meted out to traitors to the crown.
I could not understand why Louise was motionless. Surely another
goji berry was not needed, and the thought of having to emerge from
the pod in this environment could not even be contemplated. My
advice to her, if she had deigned to ask, would be - show them a
clean pair of heels, clear out of here fast, trunk hop in your inimitable
manner while you can. Then it began to sink in. Of course, Louise
was a very large version of their usual supper, served live daily, after
all those great herds of Red Deer had to be kept in check and how
could an estate like this be run on a mere 3 million a year without
such convenient green feeding strategies. Deer enjoy being chased
and may even relish being torn to bits, though studies of this form of
slaughter are necessarily limited. I do not belong to the school of
thought which holds that animals are indifferent to pain and my
riposte to those that do is a compulsory evening class in dental work
on unanaesthetised arctic bears - try a root canal on a conscious tiger
and you'll learn all about pain. Even a domestic cat could shred a
human arm under such circumstances
Partly in order to occupy myself usefully, but mainly to pass the time
