Title: Twenty-Six Years Reminiscences of Scotch Grouse Moors
Author: Adams, William Alexander
Language: English
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[Illustration: The Strath of Dalnawillan,

FROM THE MOUND POOL.

AFTER A PICTURE BY DOUGLAS ADAMS.]



TWENTY-SIX YEARS REMINISCENCES OF SCOTCH GROUSE MOORS.

by

W. A. ADAMS.

The Illustrations Drawn by C. Whymper.



London:
Horace Cox,
"The Field" Office. 346 Strand. W.C.

1889.

London:
Printed by Horace Cox, 346, Strand, W.C.



CONTENTS.


                                        PAGE

  INTRODUCTION                              1

  SEASONS 1863 TO 1888                5 to 86

  A HARE DAY                               87

  REMARKS ON THE OUTCOME OF DISEASE        89

  HEATHER BURNING AND DRAINING             95

  SURFACE DRAINING                         98

  DOGS                                    100

  DISEASE                                 110

  WILDFOWL                                111

  CONCLUSION                              112

  SUMMARY                                 113



[Illustration: "The first gleam of light on Pickering Moor."]



TWENTY-SIX YEARS REMINISCENCES

OF

SCOTCH GROUSE MOORS.


My grouse shooting days are now past. Increasing years and rheumatic
muscles remind me that I have had my time, and a very good time too, so
now let younger men take my place and profit by my experience, if it
should so please them.

Let us look back on grouse shooting twenty-six years ago. Scotland, so
far as regards the sporting of the far north, was then almost a _terra
incognita_.

Railways ended at Inverness, and to get there needed a journey to
Aberdeen, and from there by the slowest of slow railways, but quick
enough--life was not run at so fast a pace as now.

The more remote districts of the north and west of Scotland were as
unknown as the wilds of Labrador.

Previous to that time grouse shooting was for the few; we were content
with our English shootings, and very nice and pleasant they were.

Every farmer, if the shooting was in his take, preserved his game; he
shot it or he let it. The stubbles were long and full of weeds, the old
pastures full of feg, and there was plenty of clover, but turnips not
so much grown as now, excepting in the eastern counties, about which I
know very little, the hedges and ditches not kept clean as they are now.

There was much less of hand rearing of pheasants; the hens were spared
certainly the second time through, and nice mixed bags were made
in covert with hares and rabbits and wild pheasants, hand rearing
partridges being scarcely known.

Hares are now gone consequent on the Ground Game Act, and without them
the farmer does not find it worth while to preserve, as the shooting
will not let without ground game.

The open shooting was mostly done by two guns shooting together over
dogs; in fact, you could not find your birds or fur without them.

How I made acquaintance with my first grouse was very funny; I will
tell the tale:

I was at Scarborough with my wife and family, and, talking shooting
in the smoke room of the hotel, I was told as a great joke about
the shooting on a moor of about 3000 acres near Pickering that was
commonage, and free to anybody; of course, that was nonsense, the only
parties having the rights of sporting were the commoners, and all
others were trespassers; but that did not now matter, anybody shot upon
it, but since then the commoners have been wise enough to join together
and let the shooting rights at a very handsome rent.

Well, I was fired with the desire of seeing a grouse on the wing. It
was rather slow for me at the seaside. I fancy that most paterfamilias
find it so. Saying nothing, and cogitating the matter over, I
determined to begin my first Twelfth, and accordingly I sent for a
brace of my dogs from the south.

The shooting being free, it was necessary to be on the moor before
daylight. Therefore I went over to Pickering by train in the afternoon
of the eleventh, had some dinner at the inn, and hired a trap and man
to drive me over, the driver to officiate as gilly or keeper, and, he
being a Yorkshireman, anything in the way of sport could not come amiss
to him. I found him keen as mustard to get me on the ground in good
time, and at a good starting point.

With the first gleam of twilight the moor was ablaze with the fire of
some thirty or more guns.

My first grouse was down before I could see him. Something fluttered
up, I shot in the line, down came a bird, and to my intense delight I
handled my first grouse--a fine old cock bird.

In three hours the whole thing was over, every bird not killed was put
off on to neighbouring ground.

I had managed to get two and a half brace, and thought myself very
lucky. I dare say a hundred brace were got off in that short three
hours.

I took myself away to Saltersgate Inn, a comfortable wash up, some
breakfast, and a nap, and in the afternoon quietly back to Pickering,
and home to dinner.

That finished my grouse shooting for that season, but I had caught
grouse fever.

The following season I joined some other men for a few days' shooting
over dogs on a small moor in the county of Durham, and had a few
pleasant enjoyable days, getting, perhaps, thirty brace in all. At that
time grouse sat very fairly well to dogs for the first ten days in the
English counties, as they now do in Perthshire and Aberdeenshire, but
there was nothing like the quantity of birds on the English moors that
there are now. One odd thing may be remarked: In all my sporting career
I never shot but one curlew, and that was on this moor. Of birds, they
are the wariest of the wary.



SEASON 1863.


The grouse fever was upon me at full fever heat, and I was determined
that I would solve the problem of Scotch grouse shooting, and, finding
in the spring of this season that an Aberdeen innkeeper advertised
shooting, I wrote to him to know if he could put me in the way of a
small place for one gun. Of course he replied glowingly, and said that
a small moor by Gartly station, in Aberdeenshire, then on his hands,
was quite enough for one gun, that capital lodgings were to be had at
the merchant's house, and the price of the shooting for three weeks
would be but £50.

I felt quite certain that I should be done, but I also knew that
knowledge and experience could only be had by paying for it, so I
plunged to what was not a very costly plunge, and accordingly I sent
down my English keeper from Warwickshire.

In those days trains to Scotland did not afford the luxuries of to-day.
Sleepers were unknown, and in the first-class carriage the elbow did
not double up. The extreme of luxury was a second-class compartment
retained for two men, and bed up the best way you could.

I was again at Scarborough. It was a slow, weary business to travel to
York by a stopping train, and then the whole night and half next day
getting to Aberdeen. So I bethought myself of asking the London and
Aberdeen S.S. Co. to take me off at Scarborough. This they agreed to do
if I would lie off in the offing and wait for the boat.

I went off in the afternoon of the day. It was a fine day, fortunately,
and I watched ship after ship, and at last, about 4 p.m., the big
paddle wheels of the steamer loomed up.

It was the crack boat of the Aberdeen S.S. Co.; she had been chartered
as a transport during the Crimean war, and was the only ship that rode
out, or steamed out, the heavy gale off Balaclava that wrecked so many
of our ships.

She tried to take me on board without a full stop, but I would not see
it, and drifted a long way astern, causing considerable delay; but at
last I was got up the side.

The captain swore great guns at the idea of stopping his ship for
one passenger. I agreed with him and recommended him to swear at his
directors in London; and verily believe he would have sworn at them if
he had had them there to swear at.

A smooth and lovely passage, arriving at Aberdeen about 11 a.m. next
morning.

On arriving off the coast of Fife we ran through a school of whales,
spouting and tumbling about in the most idiotic manner.

Arrived at Aberdeen I lunched at my friend the innkeeper's, who
impressed me with the exceeding merits of my take, and the grouse I
should get.

In the afternoon I was away by train to Gartly, and there found my
keeper and dogs.

The lodgings were very plain, but good enough, and there, fortunately
for me as turned out, also, lodging and shooting a moor rented from my
innkeeper at Aberdeen, was that grand old sportsman the late Mr. Ginger
Stubbs.

I am pretty certain that, my £50 being in view, that my bit of ground
was cut off from Stubbs moor as an afterthought.

Mr. Stubbs was excellent company, and very good-naturedly he taught me
a great many useful things that I desired to know about grouse shooting.

My moor was truly small: about an hour in the morning hunted it, and
then I let it rest till the afternoon, giving birds time to work back
home. The whole bag was about thirty brace of grouse, some grand brown
hares, and a few sundries.

One of my dogs, never having been on grouse, until she saw them killed,
took no more notice of them than she would of chickens.

A fortnight finished it, and I returned to England wiser in grouse lore
than when I went. The £50 was well spent.

The novelty, the pure air, the heather hills, in fact, the whole thing,
was delightful; it gave me a very considerable insight into grousing
matters, and a knowledge of grouse moors in that locality, that was
eventually of considerable use to me, and Stubbs put me right in many
ways.

According to the fashion of the times I was shooting with a gun of
7-1/4lb. weight, and I was still further handicapping myself by holding
my left hand too near the trigger guard.

"You shoot with too much gun," says Stubbs; "push out your left hand
along the barrels."

On my way south the Aberdeen innkeeper asked me to join a party that he
was making up to attend the Highland sports that were to be held at Mar
Lodge. I was nothing loth, and joined the party.

He took us down very comfortably along Dee side in a four horse
omnibus, driven by himself, and gave me the box seat by his side. I
think that he felt some compunction about the little do in respect to
the moor "that was enough for one gun."

I forgave freely enough.

Everything was well arranged, rooms having been taken beforehand at the
Hotel at Braemar.

The Prince and Princess of Wales were there (it was just after their
marriage), and, of course, a great number of notables to meet them.

The whole affair was a large garden party; the railway being only open
to Aberdeen, and the hotels in the locality not being so numerous or
extensive as they are now, there was no crowding on the ground.

I did not care much for the sports, in fact, I never could see much in
Highland sports, but other people do, so let them enjoy them, but my
trip pleased me very much.

And so ended my first experience of Highland shooting.



SEASON 1864.


In the spring I prepared for another campaign, I felt that I knew all
about grouse moors and could take care of myself, but I had yet much to
learn.

I enquired in all directions, and came across a gentleman who leased a
large moor in Perthshire, the Glenshee moor, extending from the Spital
of Glenshee to within a few miles of Braemar.

It was called 30,000 acres, probably might be 20,000.

The representations made to me were very good, and I was referred to
a gentleman in Birmingham, who had shot there one or more seasons,
and who quite truthfully gave me a very good account, so far as his
experience went.

The moor was shot by four guns, shooting in two parties, I took one gun
at £100, finding my share of dogs, ponies, gillies, &c., and I very
naturally congratulated myself that I was well landed, and could not
be otherwise than in for a good thing, and safe from all pitfalls left
open for the unwary.

There was no lodge in Glenshee in those days, and it had to be shot
from the Spital Inn.

The guns had to ride ponies from three to eight miles to get to their
beats, men and dogs walking on beforehand, so that nearly half the time
and labour was taken up in travelling to and fro', but as it turned out
it did not matter much.

The moor was a fine moor, with fine heather, but with too much green
ground upon it.

It included some of the high Grampians, and marched with the Mar Forest
on the one end, and with Caen Lochan Forest on the east side.

For those who cared to climb 3000 feet and more, and risk sprained
limbs on the roughest of broken rocks and boulders, there was a fair
sprinkling of ptarmigan.

I was fairly well dogged, I had my brace of dogs, and beforehand on
faith I had bought a middle aged pointer bitch from the keeper for
£5, and a very good purchase she was; later on I bred some very good
puppies from her and my dog Rap, and in addition to her I had my brace
of dogs and my English keeper to complete my team.

We all reached the Spital, hiring from Blairgowrie, a day or two before
the 12th, in high spirits and hopes for the coming fray.

The morning after our arrival my keeper came to me with a very long
face, he had got it from the gillie that we were done, fairly done
brown, that there was literally nothing on the ground. The moor was
very high, nothing under 1500 feet above the sea, rising to 3000 feet,
the limit of heather, and a severe snow storm late on in the spring had
killed the young birds and driven down the old ones to lower ground,
the lower moors below us were full of birds.

       *       *       *       *       *

I was very down in the mouth. I had, as I thought, taken every
precaution, and was also rather full of my cleverness at getting into
what I took to be so good a thing, and had bragged considerably; but at
the same time would scarcely credit that such an extent of fine ground
could hold nothing. I said nothing, but waited for the outcome.

On the morning of the Twelfth we went through the usual routine of
ponies, pannier ponies, gillies, dogs, &c., returning at night with a
dozen brace of old birds amongst us, perhaps not so many.

The next day the same farce was enacted on another side of the moor,
with worse results.

That night there was a great talk of what could be done with deer. In
October, perhaps, something might be done, but in August they were well
kept in by the Mar and Caen Lochan Foresters, and the talk ended where
it began.

After that my keeper and I scrambled about on the high hills, after
ptarmigan, an odd grouse, a hare or two. One day I managed to get six
brace of ptarmigan and some dotterel--and very pretty birds they were.

Ptarmigan are curious birds on the Glenshee hills, the ground being so
desperately rough it needed all your wits to walk and take care of your
gun, marking down the birds as they fluttered up like pigeons.

It was useless to shoot at a bird unless you could make sure to kill
him outright, as the wounded birds crept into holes amongst the rocks
like rabbits.

When the birds were marked down you got to them the best way you could,
and had to look very sharp to distinguish them from the colour of the
stones as they crept about. You would then shoot one on the ground,
and take another as they rose.

The old cock birds in their summer plumage were very handsome birds.

I soon had enough, and in about a fortnight made tracks for the south.

But before going south I suggested to the boss of the shooting, who had
let me the gun, that, as he must have known before he let it what the
state of things would be, he should, anyhow, return one half the money,
and that more especially as there was one corrie that held birds, and,
at the solicitation of the keeper, I had let them alone, being the only
breeding stock left to him, but I could make nothing of him. One of
the other guns, whom I will call Fred, and who had shot there several
seasons, also pressed the matter sharply, but his blandishments were of
no effect, and Fred was so annoyed that he said he would shoot there no
more, and would be glad to join with me in taking a place, if we could
find one pretty accessible, that would carry two guns shooting together.

In those days there were practically no agents, in the modern
acceptance of the term, excepting Snowie, of Inverness. There were,
also, very few advertisements, and accessible moors were in no great
plenty, and such as there were, were let to permanent tenants, who
renewed their leases at the old rents; in fact, it was pretty much the
rule that so long as the old tenant chose to remain there should be no
rise of rent. Times were then easy with landowners, and they were easy
with their tenants.



SEASON 1865.


I kept a careful watch over the advertisements in the _Field_ and other
papers, and in the spring I noted the following advertisement on a
certain Saturday:

"To be let, the Shootings of Glenmarkie, in Aberdeenshire and
Banffshire, extending over 11,000 acres of moor and low ground;
references to last tenant. Application to be made to Mr. Snowie, of
Inverness, or the Law Agents in Edinburgh."

I did not sleep upon it, but wrote that night to my law agents in
Edinburgh, asking them to call first thing on Monday morning upon the
advertisers, and telegraph me the rent and the name of last tenant. The
reply was prompt; the late tenant was Mr. Thos. Powell, of Newport,
Mon.; proprietors, the Fife Trustees; the rent, £265. I telegraphed
immediately to a mutual friend at Newport, and received my reply on the
Tuesday morning by letter.

Mr. Powell reported that it was a capital moor, with splendid birds,
and lots of them, but needed to be shot quickly, as they packed early;
that, in addition to grouse, there were a great number of large brown
hares on the lower beats, but that he could say nothing about the
partridges and snipe on the low ground as he had never troubled with
them.

Mr. Powell had given up the place to take some very large deer forest,
but that did not satisfy him, and some of my readers will probably
remember that not very long afterwards, whilst on a shooting expedition
after big game in Abyssinia, accompanied by his wife and family, the
whole party were massacred.

Fred knew the moor perfectly well at second hand through a friend who
had shot upon it a few years previously, and two years before at Gartly
I had gathered information about this identical moor, so, without
delay, by 10 a.m. on Tuesday morning, I had telegraphed my Edinburgh
agents to close a seven years lease at £265, which, as my agents could
satisfy the proprietors' agents as to my eligibility as a tenant, was
at once agreed to, and so Fred and I were joined in what proved a very
pleasant partnership.

To illustrate the keenness for really good places in those days at the
moderate rents at which things went, a Staffordshire gentleman had
written on the Saturday for particulars of the moor, and was replied to
in due course on the Monday.

He accepted by letter on the Tuesday, but by telegraph I had instructed
my agents to conclude the matter, and was thus before him.

Having taken the shooting, the next best thing was to go and look at it.

The bulk of the grouse ground was in Banff, and extended over about
7000 acres, including 1000 acres adjoining, that we rented at £15 a
year from a neighbouring proprietor.

In addition to the grouse ground there was about 3000 acres of rough
hills, partly in gorse, bracken, broom, patches of heather, and rough
pastures.

This rough ground carried a goodly number of grouse, beside snipe,
golden plover, brown hares, and some few rabbits.

The low ground consisted of about 2000 acres of small arable farms
prettily mixed up with the rough ground and the lower beats of the
moorland.

There were enormous brown hares everywhere excepting on the higher
grouse beats.

The moorland was full of grouse, and the heather splendid, but had not
been sufficiently and judiciously burnt.

One hill side of about 1500 acres, nearly a fourth of the grouse
ground, was deep old heather all in one patch, without a break in it.

It was frightfully dangerous in case of fire, as the whole would have
swept away in one terrific blaze.

It was late in the season, but at once we put in two belts of burning,
dividing it into four, and the next season burnt it properly in strips,
improving the feeding and nesting ground.

On the one side we were bounded by the river Deveron, and there was
salmon fishing, but they were late, and as red as mahogany, and also
very stiff to rise; in fact, the few that we had were taken with the
worm in the rocky pools, so the salmon fishings were very little worth.
The trout fishing was not much account, though in the month of May fair
baskets could be made during the rise of the March brown.

The lodge was small but well enough situated, just seven miles from
Huntley. As a matter of course the windows looked on to the wrong point
of view, but that is almost always the case in the older shooting
lodges. There was a small but very productive garden between the lodge
and the river; at end of August and beginning of September the bush
fruit and the strawberries were splendid.

The situation of the lodge by the river side was very pleasant, and
made gay by flowering annuals, which were much brighter in colour than
those grown in the south.

We were very fortunate in the minister, who was a gentleman and a
scholar, and we liked the schoolmaster.

Little more than a stone's throw from the manse was a salmon pool, and
regularly after breakfast and after tea, no matter the state of water
or weather, our old minister fished the pool once up and once down, it
might take him five to ten minutes.

He was very reticent as to his success, but our impression was that he
had about a fish a week the season through--of course he would fish
blank during drought, but he fished away all the same.

Our next door neighbour was Beldornie, with its little old fashioned
castle, a habitable castle, and let as the lodge for the Beldornie
shooting, and the banks of the river between our lodge and the castle
were pretty steep and beautifully wooded with natural hazel, birch and
ash.

The kennels were pretty good, and as Fred and I shot together, three or
four brace of dogs did us well.

[Illustration: Ready for the Start.]

We were well dogged for the 12th, with my three dogs and three of
Fred's; one of his was a queer beast, a rough-looking rugged Russian
setter. He was honest, staunch, and industrious, and quartered his
ground well, but nothing would stop him, you might whistle and whistle
till you were hoarse until he got into the neighbourhood of birds, and
then down he sat on his rump and would wait, aye an hour if need be.
Very rarely did he spring birds, as he did not draw upon them until
you were with him. On one occasion so far did he go that we uncoupled
another dog and worked up to him, getting birds on the way until we
attended to his.

Fred and his wife and I went down a few days before the 12th, and he
and I had a skirmishing afternoon on part of the rough ground, getting
brown hare, snipe, plover, and a rabbit or two.

The grouse ground was in six beats, but on the 12th we went through
some of the rough ground, getting thirty-one brace of magnificent birds
and some brown hares and sundries, and the next day on a grouse beat
about sixty brace, and continued to make good bags for several days,
when the weather broke and quickly pulled the joint bags down to thirty
and twenty brace a day.

We made about 370 brace, besides a lot of brown hares and sundries,
returning south early in September to commence partridge shooting about
the 10th of September, which is early enough in most English counties.

To get off a large bag would have needed two more guns shooting in
another party, and so take off all that was possible in the first week
before the birds began to pack, but we were happy enough, and did not
care to cram the little lodge too full.

To show how very ticklish the birds were, shooting four days a week, it
would take ten days to get over the beats once, and during our lease we
never remember getting over the six beats before a break of weather and
the birds packing.

We carried our game, lunches, spare ammunition, &c., on a pannier pony.
Our pony man, Geordie Gordon, was a character--he was Jack of all
trades, minister's man, clerk to the kirk, and pony man in the shooting
season, and also did what gardening was needed, his dialect the purest
Aberdeen, so pure that I always needed an interpreter. He was expected
to keep his eyes upon and mark wide birds. On one occasion a bird
towered--"Where did he go, did you mark him, Geordie?" "Yes, yes, up,
up, up--up there," said Geordie, pointing to the sky.



SEASON 1866.


This season we added three puppies of Nell and Rap's to the kennel;
they were liver and white like the old dogs, so we called the family
Mr. and Mrs. Rap, and the young Raps, but though the puppies turned out
well, none of them came up to old Rap. He would do anything, point,
retrieve, catch rats, rabbiting, or anything you liked.

He would do what not one dog in twenty, aye! in fifty, will do: if he
had a slant wind of birds he turned back and took a round swing to get
his wind properly; with most dogs you have to whistle and work them
round by hand.

I bred him from a pure heavy Spanish pointer dog and a well-bred
English bitch, but one so rank that her owner gave her to me to breed
from, and then make away with her. I kept three puppies out of the
litter, but, excepting Rap, although better looking, they were no
good--no real work in them. They would have sold well, but I preferred
to shoot them to selling the man who would have bought them.

One other very good-looking likely puppy I gave to the old Marquis de
la----, but I believe, as the old gentleman made a pet of him, and
endowed him with a collar and bells, and would have shaved him had he
had anything to shave, that his sporting career was not brilliant.

I came by Rap's father rather oddly: he belonged to a working
carpenter, who had picked up the puppy at some nobleman's place where
he had been working, had broken him well, and he was a very careful,
slow ranger, the very thing for English shooting in the days of
stubbles, and I had had my eye upon him all the early summer, and at
last, about the middle of August, I negociated the purchase for £7; but
the dog never came, and I could not get to hear anything about him. But
in the afternoon of August 31 up comes Mr. Carpenter and his dog to
"implement" the bargain, as Scotch people would say. I wanted to know
how the delay came about, and, after a lot of cross-questioning, it
came out that General ----'s coachman and he had agreed that the dog
was to be planted on the general at £12, and the difference of £5 to be
divided between coachman and carpenter; but the planting did not come
off, so in the eleventh hour he was brought up to me, and I was glad to
take him.

As Shot, the Spanish dog, grew old, he became very dodgy; he had the
run of the house, and would get away and hunt the hedges for the
labourer's dinners and bring them home, napkins and all; and, if taken
into the town to the butcher's shop, he would go, and, somehow or
other, get away unperceived with a piece of meat. He was never caught
red handed, at any rate by the butcher, who was consequently accused of
base slander.

The staunchness of those Spanish pointers was remarkable. On one
occasion he was pointing and roading, and pointing a landrail in a
patch of clover; the bird was headed and rose, and flew right towards
the dog's mouth. Shot opened his mouth, and closed it on the bird, and
then he stood stock still without moving a muscle.

He never attempted to meddle with game or rabbits, but if he came near
a tiny rabbit just out of the burrow he would pick him up and bolt him
like a pill.

This was a very good season, the second day getting over 100 brace to
the two guns, shooting together over the same dogs--getting in all
about 400 brace in the season, besides hares and sundries.

But Fred, when we left the place, was full of fear and trembling, as
at the latter end we got two or three badly-diseased birds. Fred knew
what disease meant; but to me it was something new yet to learn; and,
looking at the magnificent stock of fine healthy birds, I made light of
his fears.

When we took the place, and afterwards went down to look at it, every
inquiry was made as to disease, but not a soul would own to anything.
It was stated on all hands that on Glenmarkie disease was a thing
unknown, but Fred did not believe in its being so. I daresay many of my
readers have been told the same flattering tale about other moors, and
with the same results.

Before leaving we discharged the keeper; we could not do with his
domineering ways, and, after careful inquiry, we engaged young David
Black, a son of a keeper of Lord Airlie's. He came of a good game
keeping stock, and was all that we could wish for.

He was married to an Orkney woman; we liked them both, and they have
been in my service ever since, which should speak well for master and
man.



SEASON 1867.


This was indeed a disastrous season; it was really frightful. Fred's
worst fears were more than realised. In the spring disease raged with
intense virulence, dead birds lying about in scores on the green ground
by the waterside and elsewhere--many in full plumage and apparently in
full health. Before the 12th, with the exception of a few broods on the
rough ground, there was practically, so to speak, not a bird left upon
the grouse ground.

       *       *       *       *       *

The whole district was in the same condition; and it goes without
saying that we did not go near the place. Fred said, gloomily enough,
"There will be no grouse shooting for three years," and he was
practically right.

David Black reported that the spates on the river brought down dead
birds in such quantities as to choke the surface of the eddies and
backwaters.

I was almost in despair; I was very keen on the shooting, and I had
struggled hard for five years to get it, and realised but two good
seasons out of the five.



SEASON 1868.


Of course, we let the grouse alone for this season, as well as in 1867.
There were very few to let alone; but the disease was gone, and we
comforted ourselves the best way we could with the low-ground shooting
in October.

David Black had worked up the low ground well. When we first took the
place there were very few partridges. The first season there was a
covey of twenty-two birds close to the lodge. We let them alone, and
they had multiplied, and in addition there were also a few odd pairs
in other parts of the ground. We had shot none, and they had had three
years jubilee and pretty good breeding seasons.

In these high, stormy countries, during heavy snows the poor things can
get very little food, and naturally draw down into the stackyards for
food and shelter, and, if not carefully looked after, get potted by the
farmer, but are not of much good to him, as they are little better than
skin and bone.

Black looked after them. I don't think that our former keeper troubled
himself, or the stock would have got up quicker; and there was now a
fine stock of all sorts of low-country game, pheasants excepted. Of
course, by a fine stock I mean a fine stock for a wild stormy country.

We had a most enjoyable fortnight's shooting over dogs. In the twelve
days we managed to make a mixed bag of 600 head--partridge, snipe,
plover, brown hares, rabbits, &c.

The grouse we let alone, except a stray old cock now and again that had
survived through the epidemic--very handsome to look at, but, like the
monarch of the glen, very tough, and unsavoury on the table.

Of course, on that wild ground the covies of partridges were, looking
at the extent of ground, few and far between.

The dogs hunted the small turnip fields and the ground round the edges
of the oat stubbles, say, for a hundred yards about. It might be wooded
burn sides, or deep feg or heather, and, perhaps, whins and broom. The
birds took a lot of finding. Of course, we got other stuff, meanwhile,
on the way; and the covey once found, and flushed again and again in
neaps, brackens, heather, or what not, the dogs kept pegging them until
the covey was pretty well cleared up. Sometimes a covey would utterly
beat us by settling into heavy patches of gorse that the dogs would not
face--at any rate, not work properly; and as to walking them up with a
retriever, they would run about, but knew better than to flush.

After that very naturally we went down every October until the end of
the lease, and the last season we had 190 brace of partridges alone.

When hunting near the moor edges we often got a few grouse that were
down to the stubble; and in these delightful mixed bags over dogs, how
a couple of brace of fine grouse were appreciated.

These mixed bags in the crisp October air, the walking, the variety of
sport, though not the quantity, beat the August shooting for enjoyment
of sport. You would not know what the dog's point might mean; it might
in some ground be hare, snipe, partridge, or grouse. I have made
doubles at hare and snipe. The hares were splendid. You may not believe
it, but Fred made a double at hares that weighed 22lb. the brace.

One season I stopped over for an extra day by myself--it would be the
18th of October--on the rough ground, and made the following mixed bag
over dogs:

  4 Grouse, stalked on the plough from behind the dykes.
  6 Partridges.
  2 Woodcock (very unusual).
  4 Snipe.
  9 Brown hares.
  2 Golden plover.
  1 Green plover.
  1 Rabbit.
  --
  29 Head.

Grouse, when they get on the plough, are sometimes very stupid, in the
above case I stalked the four birds, there were but four; I shot one on
the ground, did not show myself, let the bird lie; the others then just
fluttered up and flew fifty yards; and down within reach of the dyke,
got another, then the other two again fluttered up and down again, that
time I jumped up and showed myself and got the pair right and left as
they rose.



SEASON 1869.


Black said that we might go down in August and stretch our legs, and
kill a few grouse on the rough ground, so down we went, and made about
sixty brace of grouse and a lot of sundries, especially golden plover.
Of these there were quantities, and in ordinary August months we were
far too busy with grouse to heed them.

One afternoon a pack of green and a pack of golden plover were very
busy fighting and screaming for the possession of a hill side, and so
busy that they took little or no heed of us, and four barrels dropped
twelve couple, of course, some of the cripples needed another barrel.

There is one way, and an almost certain way of circumventing flocks
of golden plover: they are very inquisitive birds, you will see them
on the face of the hill, mostly small round hills; let the keeper sit
down with the dogs, say 100 yards in front of them, and whilst they are
watching him, slip quietly round the hill, over the top, down on the
flock before they are aware of you, and a family shot into the brown
with two barrels of No. 8 will sometimes bring down two or three couple.

We had a good deal of trouble with fellows coming up from Huntly,
fishing. Powell had let anybody come, and it was difficult to stop it.
One morning we saw a young fellow putting a salmon rod together on the
other side of the river, I sent over the under keeper, Sandy, a big,
strong Highlander, to put him off; but he would not budge, he stated
that we were going out for our sport, shooting, and he meant to have
his sport, fishing. Sandy was again sent over to intimate that if he
fished he was to take his rod and put him personally into the salmon
pool. "What, take my rod and put me in the river, contrary to law?"
Sandy simply said he had no option, it was the master's orders, and
he took the rod as a beginning. I was summoned for illegally taking
the rod, and took out a counter summons for the fishing, each party
was fined by the sheriff, the fisher much heavier than we were, but my
decisive action stopped all further trouble. If I had not taken the rod
I should not have got the fellow's name.



SEASON 1870.


Three years weary patience was rewarded in the fourth year with a fine
grouse season, and, not being quite so thick upon the ground as in
ordinary good seasons, the grouse sat better, and in the second and
third weeks we made better bags than was customary.

Our lease was running out, this was the sixth season.

The factor did his best to induce us to renew for another seven years.
I was anxious to do so, notwithstanding our disappointments, but my
chum did not seem to care to do it, and I hardly liked to do so without
him, and very much I afterwards regretted it.

The factor had always used us well, in the best possible manner, he had
an old-fashioned notion that decent folks who paid a good round sum for
sport and gave no trouble, were entitled to consideration, and to have
something for their money; the modern factor quite discards ideas so
very ridiculous.

In the spring of this season I was down with my second son for some
trout fishing in the river, and we had some pleasant sport, being
favoured with two or three small rises of water and a good show of
March browns. We managed to make nice little baskets of 6lb. to 7lb.
each on most days, fishing the Beldornie water as well as our own.

We had, neither of us, ever seen a red deer--anyhow, on his native
heath--and we decided to make a day out to Glen Fiddoch Forest.

We knew that it was five miles across the Glenmarkie ground to the
extreme point of our outside march at Auchendown Castle, and how
much further we knew not. That, bear in mind, was before the days of
ordnance maps.

We were all good walkers, that is, David and myself, and my son Oliver;
he held a front place in athletics at Rugby School.

We crossed the moor south of Auchendown, and then got at last on to the
road track to Glen Fiddoch Lodge. Altogether, it was a long tramp, the
last few miles following up the Fiddoch burn, but time and labour at
last landed us at the lodge.

The lodge was very old-fashioned, was all on the ground floor, with
rooms on one side of a long building, and a passage on the other side.

The housekeeper was a civil old body: would give us some tea, which
we appreciated, and made much of us in every way; showed us the room
that had been used by the Queen the year before, when visiting the
Duke. Everything was simple in the extreme. I am sure that no broker
would have bid over eighteen pence for the washing stand in the Queen's
bedroom.

On our way we saw deer by scores on the hill sides, and also round the
lodge.

All was very pleasant up to now, but there was the walk back. By the
time we reached Auchendown we had had enough, and there was the five
miles across heavy moorland yet to be done. Some people say that your
native heath, and the springiness of the heather, make walking pleasant
and easy, but don't believe it; my notion has always been that one mile
of moorland is equal to two on the hard road.

David was fairly done. It is not the first time that I had walked down
the natives, both in Ireland and in Scotland, but I never expected to
see David brought to a stand.

Well, we laid down and rested a good hour, refreshed with biscuits and
whiskey and water, and put the five miles behind us before dark.



SEASON 1871.


The proprietor, to our very great surprise and astonishment, intimated
to us and to the tenants of the arable farms on the Fife estates, that,
on the expiration of the current sporting leases, they should have the
right to kill ground game on their arable farms, how and when they
liked.

This was a knock down blow. I am inclined to think that the factor had
an inkling of it when he pressed us to renew; that he wanted to make
his sporting leases safe, so that they should not be affected by it.

There were forty tenants in Glenmarkie who would have the right to
shoot, and, naturally, I did not see my way to preserve game on the low
ground in the teeth of that, so, with great reluctance, we told our
good factor that we should have to go.

He offered considerable reduction in rent--anything to induce us to
stop, except rescinding the ground game fad, and that he could not do.

The only reason that could have suggested such action on the part of
the proprietor must have been political, probably to outbid M'Combie,
the Radical candidate for Aberdeenshire; but so it was, and there was
no way of getting over it.

The stock of grouse upon the ground was very large, and the late Mr.
O. joined us in the grouse time, and after the first two days he and
Fred shot together.

In the first two days shooting together Fred and I made over the same
dogs over one hundred brace a-day. The total bag in the two days was
two hundred and ten brace of grouse, and some sundries; and I have but
little doubt that, if I had been bent on a swagger bag, shooting by
myself, commencing at 8 a.m. in place of 11 a.m., I could have made a
hundred brace in one day to my own gun.

After that I managed the birds pretty well by myself, and when they
became skittish, by starting about from 12 to 1 o'clock, and hunting
the wild ground into good sitting ground, taking time for lunch,
and beginning to work the birds about 3 to 4 o'clock, I made pretty
shooting.

I had to work the dog myself, the gillie keeping down in the heather
out of sight.

Old Rap was gone, I hope to where good dogs go, for he deserved it if
dogs can deserve it.

His two sons, Duke and Prince, did my work. Duke was a nice-mannered,
tractable, gentle beast, but Prince was a rank tartar.

So soon as you loosed him from the couples, he would do some rank
trick, get on the foot of a hare, or what not; then come in to the
whip, get it hot, wag his tail, and then for some time go to work with
a skill and courage far beyond Duke, then again to the whip, and so he
went on to the end of his days.

One afternoon I had a laughable sell--the laugh was against me, though.
My chums were not going out, so I drove my birds carefully into
sitting ground, that was principally on what was their beat.

I got a fine lot of birds into good ground, and at 3 p.m. rose up from
lunch to make what I knew would be a good afternoon's work, rather out
of the common.

As I got up, who should I see but David and the two chums coming round
the shoulder of the hill, into the ground I had carefully filled with
birds. They had point after point, and made an unexpectedly fine
afternoon's shooting, about twenty-five brace of birds. They had not
the slightest notion how it came about. I said nothing, not I, as I had
rather stretched a point by driving into their beat, but David knew
that something had been done to get them this good shooting, and worked
it out of my gillie after we got home, and a pretty laugh there was,
and no thanks.

Of course I got no shooting that afternoon; perhaps a brace or two
before lunch, and a brace or two after.

It was a charming season; exceptionally nice weather, no gales, plenty
of sun, and just enough rain to keep things pleasant and scent good.

My own bag was three hundred and ninety-one and a-half brace, and one
hundred and fourteen brace of partridges in October, besides a lot of
brown hares, plover, snipe, &c.

Altogether we had a good way over six hundred brace, and a special good
time with the low ground in October.

The snipe shooting was far better in the earlier years of our lease. It
was, indeed, very good, especially in one swamp of a few acres, that
was too soft for cattle to tread it, and there the snipe bred in large
quantities; but an enterprising farmer came along with some large pipe
drains, and settled the snipe. It was a sad pity, but you cannot hammer
into proprietors that the value of the snipe shooting far exceeds the
couple of pounds extra value of grazing caused by draining, in fact,
that snipe shooting would with some men be the turning point of whether
they took the shooting or not.

It was getting time to look about me for another shooting, and, making
enquiries, I had the offer of a celebrated moor not far away, up in
Strathspey.

The moor was noted for swagger bags on the first few days, so I sent
David to inspect and report, which he did faithfully and fully. It was
a grand place, and the rent moderate.

He was given every information, and shown the game books with a record
of twenty-five years (that takes us back in the records of disease
for nearly half-a-century). On the average, it showed but three good
seasons out of seven.

I was very much surprised, and I did not feel inclined to face that,
but many to whom money is no object, and who can shoot elsewhere as
well, would say, "Yes, we will pay seven years' rent and expenses for
three years of extraordinary sport in the three good seasons." It ended
in my declining it.

       *       *       *       *       *

Some two or three years previously I had been in Caithness for a
fortnight's salmon fishing at the end of February, on the Thurso. If
I remember rightly, Mr. R. L. Price had given me his rod on the river
for that time.

[Illustration: Braal Castle.]

Then, at Braal Castle I made the acquaintance of William Dunbar, an
acquaintance that lasted so long as Dunbar lived, and still continues
with his widow, and his daughter, Mrs. Sutherland.

Dunbar was a very remarkable man in his way. He made his living by
taking shootings and fishings from Caithness proprietors.

Acting under his advice, the proprietor opened up the main strath, by
making a road from the county road at Strathmore, past Dalnawillan and
Glutt, to join the road at Braemore on to Dunbeath, and so open up
access to Glutt and Dalnawillan from the south, without going round by
Wick or Thurso.

He also built Strathmore and Dalnawillan lodges and keepers' houses,
kennels, &c.

Dunbar leased from the proprietor the whole of the fishings and
shootings from the sea to the Sutherland march, and in addition
many smaller shootings in the Wick and Watton districts from other
proprietors, who all knew little or nothing about sporting subjects
(and, as a matter of fact, they and their factors know as little now),
still less how to make them available for, and how to introduce them
to, southern sportsmen. As it was, Dunbar was really a perfect godsend
to the various proprietors, and to the county of Caithness generally,
from the large sums of money brought into the county by his shooting
and fishing friends and tenants.

The Ulbster shootings, which constituted the main strath when I first
knew Dunbar, were divided as follows, or thereabouts, including about
5000 acres leased from other proprietors:--

  Braal                          10,000
  Strathmore and Achlybster      19,000
  Chullacan and Bachlas           6,000
  Dalnawillan                    18,000
  Glutt                          15,000
                                 ------
                                 68,000

The Thurso salmon angling was let to six rods, and the anglers lodged
in the early months at Braal Castle, and later on at Strathmore Lodge.

In those days the lower beats fished well in February and March, the
fish running from 8lb. to 10lb., with an occasional big one; but now in
the early months they run about double the weight, few and far between,
and make up almost at once for Loch More and the upper beats. The
reason for the change is not far to seek.

Dunbar had a happy knack in letting shootings and fishings. He
understood sport, was frank, truthful, and kept back nothing. It did
not need an old hand to read between the lines of his statements.

He was pretty keen in making his bargains, but once made he did
his best to make things comfortable for his clients. He went for a
connection, and he made one. There was not a grain of meanness or
littleness in his composition; whether in the bond or not he did the
fair thing. He knew how to deal with gentlemen, and men felt safe in
his hands, and voids in his shootings and fishings were rare.

He was popular in Caithness with all classes.

Fred elected not to continue grouse shooting, and our pleasant
partnership came to an end, and I had to decide what I would do.

When in Caithness, I had picked up all the information I could gather
as to Caithness moors.

In all ways they were the very opposite to Glenmarkie. Grouse sat well
for quite a month, rather more on the hill moors, and rather less on
the low moors, and nowhere did they pack, except in heavy snowstorms
when the ground was all white, and they made away to the lower grounds
for food.

There was nothing like the quantity of grouse that I had at Glenmarkie,
but the ranges were larger--wide ranging dogs and good walking
imperative; but when dogs got birds they sat well.

There was also a considerable quantity of wild fowl, wild geese, ducks,
and blue hares; very few on Glenmarkie. No low ground shooting, in
fact, no arable on the hill moors.

       *       *       *       *       *

The heather was short and stunted, with stretches of deer grass and
flows; in fact, no good heather on the hill moors. Excepting on the
burn banks and dry knolls, the ground was mostly peat bog, too soft to
carry a pannier pony, and the birds had to be carried in panniers on
gillies' backs.

The trout fishing in the upper streams and burns of the Thurso that fed
Loch More was pretty good. The trout were plentiful but small, running
about four to the pound, but they came quick and lively. The loch
fishing was not much account; perhaps I should except one loch, that
yielded heavy trout of fine quality, but very shy.

       *       *       *       *       *

Glenmarkie was a Christian-like place, but the principal moors of
Caithness were a howling wilderness, not a tree and scarcely a shrub;
but it was a wilderness of weird beauty in changing lights. The outlook
from the top of Ben Alasky on a wild stormy day, with changing sunlight
and storms, over the loch bespattered land, backed up by the cliffs of
Orkney, was one of the things to see and to remember.

To me this wild and weird land has great charms.

Well, I wrote to Dunbar in the early summer to say that my lease was
expiring, and that I wanted a shooting for 1872, and on a long lease.

He offered me one or two small ones in the Watton and Wick districts,
but I told him that I must have Glutt, Dalnawillan, or Strathmore. He
replied that all were let on lease, and could not be had.

But in September he wrote again, saying that his tenant Col. C., from
failing health, desired probably to relinquish the lease of Dalnawillan
and Chullacan, 18,000 and 6000 acres respectively, and that they could
be had jointly or separately at £400 and £160, for the unexpired term
of the Colonel's lease, of which there was nine years then to run.

I sent Black down to inspect and report.

It culminated as Dunbar had foreshadowed, and at the latter end of
October I went straight from Glenmarkie to Dalnawillan.

The railway was then open to Helmsdale, and from there I travelled by
mail coach as far as Dunbeath, a lovely drive past Berriedale, the
property of the Duke of Portland, but being night I could see but
little of it on that occasion.

I slept at Dunbeath, and posted over next morning, 16 miles, the whole
distance across the moorland, to Dalnawillan.

Angus Mackay, the Colonel's gillie, met me at the march with a dog,
and, getting the gun out of the case, I shot up to the lodge.

The day was warm and sunny, and I was amazed and puzzled; I saw no
birds. At Glenmarkie they would have rolled up over the sky line; but
birds sat to the dog, and I killed three and a half brace. Three days
before, at Glenmarkie, being the last day that I should shoot, I tried
to get a few grouse, my endeavours resulting in one bird, but plenty of
packs rising before me.

The next day was showery and gusty, and the birds did not sit well, but
at Glenmarkie they would have rolled up in packs.

I spent two nights at the lodge with the Colonel's brother, who came
over to meet me, and next morning was away to Thurso to meet the
Colonel and Dunbar.

It was agreed that the lease should be assigned. I suggested a new
lease from Dunbar, and that he should make it the full ten years.

"Take it to the end of my lease, seventeen years, if you like," says
Dunbar, to which I assented; so it was settled that I should take the
24,000 acres of Dalnawillan, and Chullacan, and Backlas, at the rent of
£560, proprietor paying all rates and taxes, and I paying my keeper and
all other expenses.

This included a joint right of trout fishing on Dalnawillan,
Strathmore, and Glutt, and salmon fishing, after June 1.

When I returned to England my shooting friends told me that I was crazy
to take shooting in such an out-of-the-way, wild country, and tie
myself up for such a term of years. I felt I had done right; I meant
grouse shooting and fishing, and that, as railways had crept up, and
were creeping up, that shootings were more likely to improve than get
worse, in case of some unforeseen event occurring that should cause me
to cease to shoot.

Black had made every inquiry as to disease. Dunbar told me plump that
five years before they had had disease, but it was a mild attack, and
did not stop shooting. As, however, the moor had not carried a good
head of grouse until the year I took it, I expect that the tenants shot
away, killing down the breeding stock that should have been nursed. It
was admitted that the moors on the south and east had been badly hit
with disease.

I took the place with my eyes open, and was prepared to take the fat
with the lean, but I candidly confess that I had more lean than I
expected or liked.

I looked for disease in 1874, but it came sooner.



SEASON 1872.


Of course, the moor was larger than I needed for my own personal use,
and according to the fashion of the time I proposed to get others to
join me, so I looked out for a couple of guns to share expenses.

It was proposed that the moor should be shot in three parties of one
gun each. There was no difficulty in those days in getting guns to
join, but it is very difficult now. I take it, that before the passing
of the Ground Game Act there was more English shooting of a moderate
character, and, so to speak, men were educated to shoot, and naturally
were desirous of trying their hands on grouse; besides, the shooting
squires are not so well to do throughout the country as they were
before the depression in land.

I advertised in the _Field_ on a Saturday, and before Monday was over
a gentleman in Berkshire had been straight to my place in Shropshire
and arranged for one gun, and the other was fixed before the end of the
week. Very nice, cheery, gentlemenly men they both were. Mr. C. and Mr.
D. were my colleagues.

My wife, my sister-in-law, and the children, accompanied us in August;
we had a sleeping saloon as far as Helmsdale, the then terminus of
Northern Railways.

That night we stopped at Ross's Hotel. Helmsdale was the only entrance
by road into Caithness, and Ross's the only hotel, so the capacity of
Ross's rooms was the gauge of the traffic. The Countess of Caithness
had our rooms the night before, and they were booked for somebody else
the night after us.

The next day Ross posted us in a _char-a-banc_ the thirty-two miles to
Dalnawillan, stopping to lunch and bait horses at Dunbeath; the luggage
had gone on before in two carts.

The drive to Dunbeath was lovely over the Ord and past Berriedale, the
Duke of Portland's place.

At Dunbeath after lunch the party walked down to the sea to look at
the rocks and fishing boats, and we all enjoyed it thoroughly; after
this break there was a sixteen mile drive across the moorland, passing
Braemore and Glutt Lodges on the left.

There being no railway we made arrangements with the Glutt party, and
engaged with a carrier to bring letters, supplies, &c., from Dunbeath
and take back game bags, empties, &c., the following day. We were
quite as well off, in fact, better than if we had been fidgetted with
railway, post-office, and telegraph at our elbow.

Things went well with us, the shooting was excellent, the Chullacan and
Backlas beats were especially full of birds that season. At Chullacan
was a very primitive farmhouse with a small cooking place, and a room
for us to serve as sitting-room and bedroom. The farmer's room was at
the other end of the house, and in his case the smoke found its way
through the hole in the roof. At this place we lodged twice for two
nights, each time when we shot the beats on that side. We were pretty
cramped, making up three small beds at night; the morning bath we took
by standing outside the house in a state of nature while the gillies
douched us with pails of cold spring water.

The first time that we went over on the three days shooting, I made
forty-two, forty, and forty-five brace to my own shoulder, and on our
return we enjoyed the comfort of a day's lazy rest amongst the comforts
of Dalnawillan Lodge. We were all very happy, my two chums in raptures,
and insisting on engaging their guns for the next season.

Man proposes, God disposes.

    Bag.        Dalnawillan and Rumsdale.

  Grouse               1098 brace.
  Sundries              67-1/2 "

The birds were healthy in a way when we left, but did not look well in
plumage. It had been a wet draggly summer, and that partly accounted
for it; but before leaving we saw a few very seedy birds on our
Dunbeath march.

Dunbar had been very busy all the season for the Duke of Sutherland.

At that time the shootings and fishings of the Helmsdale Strath were
divided into three great lumps of ground:

  Sir John Karslake the upper end, say about 60,000 acres.
  Mr. Hadwen, the middle, say about          60,000   "
  Mr. Meredith, the bottom end, say about    60,000   "

I cannot be precise about the extent, but that was about it.

Mr. Akroyd's, in Strath Naver, was almost unlimited, and included
nearly all the salmon fishing of the Naver.

The Duke was disturbed in his mind, or somebody else was, and, Dunbar
being the only man who really knew anything about the management of
shootings and fishings, the Duke sent for him and engaged his services
to report on the whole matter of the Sutherland shootings and fishings
for the handsome fee of £1000, and well earned too, as he was the only
man that could do it.

Acting under his advice the Duke divided the Helmsdale Strath into six
shootings, with six salmon rods on the river, one rod to each shooting
at £50 for those who chose to take them, and so the thing remains to
this day, but with rents increased and half the ground taken away, the
then existing tenants were somewhat indignant, but there was nothing
much to grumble about.

Mr. Hadwen, who lived upon his place, being very little away, and also
farmed the sheep, had built himself a good house on a yearly tenancy,
went to see the Duke and the factor, Mr. Peacock, and they had a
meeting about it.

"Your grace, I have been your tenant now for nearly twenty years, never
dreaming that I should be disturbed in any way! you now take away
half the shooting and increase the rent, and that after I have spent
2000_l._ in building a good house on your land."

"Is that so, Peacock?" says the Duke.

"Yes, your grace, it is so."

"Then pay him for his house, and then we start fair," says the Duke.



SEASON 1873.


The accounts in the early spring were very cheering. On the 1st of
April Black wrote to congratulate us on excellent prospects, not a bad
bird had he seen since we left in September. There was a grand breeding
stock, and he anticipated splendid shooting.

But it was not to be. On the 15th he writes reporting birds looking
badly diseased, and on the 30th writes again that a third of the birds
were dead.

It was sickening news, but there was hope yet, as a fair breeding stock
was left, and the disease appeared to have spent itself, the birds
nesting fairly well.

At the beginning of July disease again broke out, and with greater
virulence, young and old birds falling before it; but David begged
us to come, of course, in August and shoot down all we could, and so
sweeten the ground for those that remained by stamping out all that was
possible.

Disease prevailed over nearly all Scotland; amongst others, Glenmarkie
was very bad. We did not put any birds on the table, and I sent none to
my friends. What few good-looking birds there were went to London, and
the scarcity through the country may be imagined when I say that they
made 19_s._ a brace.

    Bag.                Dalnawillan and Rumsdale.

  Grouse                    151 brace.
  Sundries                   24   "

My chums were pretty miserable, and so was I. It was a bitter
disappointment. No word from D. as to taking a gun for the next season,
and in about a week or ten days they both went south. However, I had to
make the best of it, and, leaving my family at Dalnawillan, I went into
Sutherlandshire trout fishing for a fortnight with my son Douglas, and
after that we all went home.

Caithness, in those days, was the worst mapped county in Great Britain.
There was a good estate map of the Ulbster estates, and the maps were
pretty reliable for a few miles from the coast. Sutherland, belonging
mainly to one proprietor, was well mapped.

On Dalnawillan we had a loch--a long walk across very bad ground from
the lodge--that held, both in size and quality, the best trout in
Sutherland and Caithness, but not plentiful; the best I ever did was
eighteen fish in a day, but eight of them weighed 9-1/4lb., the largest
being 1-3/4lb., and that was the largest size they ever reached, and,
generally, a day's fishing meant eight or ten, with the half of them
the larger size. A predecessor of mine at Dalnawillan assured me that
many were got up to 3lb. and 4lb.; it is marvellous the falsehoods men
will commit themselves to as to size of fish--men perfectly reliable in
other ways.

The gillies talked a good deal about a loch in Sutherland, not far
off our march, where the fish were nearly as large and good, and very
free to rise. That sounded very nice, and needed to be experimented,
and my son Douglas and I said we would take it on our way into
Sutherlandshire.

In those days the lochs of Sutherlandshire were free to the angler, and
for some years the Duke made it a condition in letting shootings that
it should be so, and as the bulk of the lochs were difficult of access,
and anglers few, there was no friction; and in the summer months there
were generally two or three rod men stopping at Auchentoul Inn, on the
Helmsdale Strath.

In the old Scotch fashion, the inn was part inn and part shooting
lodge, and in this case Sir John Karslake's keeper kept the inn, so
everything was well regulated, and caused no annoyance to Sir John or
his deer. Sir John was always courteous and pleasant.

Auchentoul Inn was twelve miles cross country--and very cross
country--from Dalnawillan, and we sent our portmanteau to Dunbeath,
sixteen miles, thence by coach, sixteen miles, to Helmsdale, and there
to wait a chance lift up the Strath, eighteen miles, to Auchentoul.

We also ordered a machine from Auchentoul to meet us at Forsinean, ten
miles by a decent road.

Willie Hunter, one of our gillies, vouchsafed to pilot; he had herded
sheep at this Loch Sletil, and knew all about it. The ordnance maps now
tell us that it is seven and a half miles from Dalnawillan, across a
very bad piece of moorland and flow.

We left Dalnawillan at 8.30 a.m.--that is, David, Douglas, and I, and
Hunter as pilot; a nasty, wet, drizzling rain; encased in macintoshes,
wet outside with rain and inside with perspiration, and after two and a
half hours tramping and slushing over the wet moors, Willie pulled up,
and in a very confused manner stated that we ought to be at the loch;
"anyhow, it used to be here," said Willie.

[Illustration: "Well! I know the loch used to be just here."]

A council was held to determine the present location of this wandering
loch, and a deviation of half a mile to the right put us upon it.
Willie returned.

After a rest we donned wading stockings, and put rods together;
it would be 12 o'clock by the time we began; we had some nice
fish, largest 1lb., but our wading stockings would not put us into
sufficiently deep water for the larger fish; but we saw enough to
convince us that the loch was not overstated.

We fished away, and packed up about 6 p.m. to make our way across the
moor to Forsinean.

Again we missed our way; we took the shoulder of Ben Sletil too high
up, and it was getting dark when we struck the road, as it turned out,
a mile on the Auchentoul side of Forsinean. Of course no machine.

It was raining; it had rained the whole day, and looked as if it meant
to rain for a week, and we took off our macintoshes to lighten the
walk--we could not get much wetter. Presently we met a shepherd, who
told us Forsinean and the trap were behind us, and, telling him to
send the trap after us, we tramped the hard road the whole nine miles,
arriving at the same time as the trap that followed.

Our portmanteau did not arrive till next morning, but the innkeeper
found us dry flannels and a good supper; it was then 10 o'clock.

       *       *       *       *       *

C. was very hopeful that grouse matters would quickly mend, and stuck
to it for another season, and after that I was left with the whole cost
of the affair for the following season, and seasons after that, which,
with rent, keeper, and expenses, was not less than £700 a year, and
nothing to shoot either, which was the worst part of the business.



SEASON 1874.


Neither C. nor I went near the place. Disease was gone, and so were the
birds. It could have been truthfully advertised as perfectly free from
disease, and lightly shot the previous season. In May, before nesting
time, David hunted every beat, and found just fifty-two pairs of birds
on the whole 24,000 acres.

In August he again hunted, and came across exactly the same number
of broods as he had found pairs. They certainly were grand broods,
averaging eight to a brood, and he managed to kill out nearly all the
old cock birds, leaving but one old bird to each brood.

Dunbar was very unhappy, and, of course, I was the same, and we
arranged to have a consultation, and I met him in Edinburgh, where he
had occasion to be. Dunbar summed up the whole thing by saying, in his
plump way, there must be no birds whatever killed for two years at
least.

Glutt, in some way, was, fortunately, off Dunbar's shoulders, and
on the hands of the proprietor, who had it in hand for three years
afterwards, when Dunbar took it off his hands at a moderate rent.

Strathmore was still on lease, the lease expiring after the season of
1874, and, backing his opinion that no birds should be killed in 1874,
he arranged with the tenants that, in consideration of no grouse being
taken off, he would abate half the year's rent.

He asked me if I would take Strathmore off his hands for the remaining
fourteen years of his lease. "You shall have the whole 19,000 acres,
including Achlybster, for £350 a year." But I was not a jobber in
moors, and already had more than enough on my hands; but, if I had been
clear of Dalnawillan, I think I would have closed with him.

The railway was making, and as the Rumsdale beats are too far away
from Dalnawillan Lodge to shoot them conveniently from there, Dunbar
suggested that I should build a small lodge near to the proposed
station, and let off 10,000 acres of the Rumsdale side of Dalnawillan
so soon as the stock of birds would warrant it.

That idea suited me down to the ground, as the remaining 13,000 or
14,000 acres attached to Dalnawillan was ample for the personal
shooting of myself and sons, with, perhaps, a friend; the idea was
eventually carried out at the proper time.

       *       *       *       *       *

In July Douglas and I went to Rhiconich, on the west coast
of Sutherland, for a fortnight's sea trout fishing. It was a
disappointment; firstly, it was dry hot weather, that, of course,
stopped sea trout fishing.

In the evening the midges were something unbearable, and drove us on to
the sea loch trolling for lythe. We were pretty successful, but very
soon used up everything in the shape of phantoms and spinners, and had
to take to small trout for spinning.

So soon as a lythe of any size took your spinner, down he went into the
seaweed tangle, and many were lost and the spinner with him.

We managed to get twenty-one lythe, weighing 83lb., of which some were
up to 10lb., but we lost most of the best fish in the weeds.

On our way back we stopped at Overscaig, on Loch Shin, for a day's
trout fishing, ending in a very fatiguing fiasco; we had a boat and two
rowers, David and a gillie from the inn.

The morning was a nice fishing morning, and we made our way down to
the Faig mouth, and got on pretty well, but, the wind changing, we put
across to the other shore, and fished away.

As the day wore on, the wind increased, blowing a gale straight down
the loch, so we got out of the boat, and, with a good deal of trouble,
hugging the shore, the two men managed to get her back to just opposite
Overscaig.

There we found two other men, who had come up from Lairg, and were in
the same fix as ourselves.

It was raining heavily as well as blowing.

Taking advantage of a lull of wind, we tried to get across, but when
a third way across, the wind again rose, and we had our work to do to
edge the boat head to wind to gain the shore without an accident.

What was to be done? asked the other party. I said that I saw nothing
for it but to walk round the head of the loch. They consulted with
their boatman as to this, and then said they could not do it.
Certainly, they had come out with thin boots and frock coats and white
shirts, as they would have done on a fine afternoon at Richmond,
totally unfit to face a wild Highland night.

"We have had no dinner," says one; "of course, we expected to get to
Overscaig to dinner." "Well," I said, "we have a little of our lunch
left, and you are welcome;" but they turned away. I believe they
thought I was chaffing them.

However, there was the choice of stopping out on the moor that wild
night or footing it, and we chose what we thought the lesser of two
evils.

It was a very long three miles to head the loch and the swamp at the
top. The shore of the loch was very deep peaty boggy ground, broken
every fifty yards with deep gullies and burns and drains, clambering
down and clambering up.

It was then quite dark, a howling wind and rain in our teeth.

At last, with nearly two hours' work, we crossed the Alt Na Ba Burn,
and, heading the swamp, got to the river that connects Loch Graim with
Loch Shin.

But, horror! the river was in spate, and not safe to cross.

We felt dead beat, and sat down in the wet; we had a little whiskey
and water, but nobody said anything; one tried to light a pipe, but
the matches were wet, and so was everything else outside our skins. We
tried to look at our watches, but too dark to see them.

It was getting towards midnight. We started again, keeping along the
banks of the river, to look for a ford. Near the outlet of Loch Graim
the river was wider, and therefore the stream not so strong, and the
bottom was hard. I had a long landing-net staff, and piloted the way;
the water was up to the bottom of the waistcoat--an even depth, and
gravel bottom, so we were all quickly safe across. Folks will say what
a fuss about crossing up to your middle; yes, but handicap it with
a dark howling night, an unknown ford, and all your courage already
pretty nearly pumped out of you, and it will not be found to be quite
so simple as it looks.

There was yet a mile of swampy walking over moorland, in the direction
of the road, before it was struck, but then we were not more than two
and a half miles from the inn, and soon put that behind us.

It was 1.30 a.m. when we reached the inn; they were waiting up most
anxiously, fearing some serious accident, but could hardly credit that
we had headed the loch, and on such a fearful night.

I have had many long wet moorland tramps, but nothing approaching to
our Loch Shin episode.

I told David to see that our gillie had a good tea and eating, and
some hot whiskey and water, but he came back to say the fellow was so
thoroughly beat that he had gone to bed, too tired and done up to eat
or drink anything.



SEASON 1875.


In June I went to Dalnawillan trout fishing.

The Thurso river rises in the heights of the Glutt shootings on the
Sutherland march amongst a bewildering labyrinth of flows and black
morasses, hideous, and gaunt. I have seen the inside of most Scotch
wildernesses, but there is nothing anywhere within the four seas--aye,
take in Ireland as well--that at all approaches the plateau from which
descend the Berriedale, the Halladale, the Thurso, and the northern
water shed of the Helmsdale, at a height of about 1400ft. above the sea.

The Thurso, commencing and for many miles a mere burn, descends from
the heights through low flats, interspersed with three rocky gorges
or glutts (from which, no doubt, the name of the shooting), of from
half a mile to a mile each in length, the burn tumbling through them
in a succession of small falls and rocky pools; and in the lowest
gorge was a waterfall or force, as it would be termed in Yorkshire or
Westmoreland.

One day fly fishing up the river, as far up as the entrance to
the first gorge, I tried some of the rocky pools. They were quite
unsuitable for the fly, but I took a number of pretty, little, bright
trout.

Talking it over with the gillies next day, they said there was no
remembrance of anybody ever having taken any fish with rod and line,
or any other way, up in the rocky water.

Well, I bethought myself, as I felt sure there would be fish as far
up as there was water, and that something might be done with the worm
worth talking about in a small way.

I was an adept in that style of fishing, having had much experience
and success in fishing small wooded brooks in Warwickshire. My mode of
fishing was with a three-jointed light stiff bamboo rod, bored down the
middle; the line, a very thin one, passing through and out at a hole
near where the hand holds the bottom joint.

When too long take off the bottom joint; no reel, simply a few yards of
line running loose behind, the hook whipped to one or two feet of gut,
and one No. 6 shot about six inches above the hook, having no rings, no
line bagging, you could push in the point of the rod anywhere, and drop
the worm by shaking the rod.

A large bag of small worms was provided, and the tackle Stewart
fashion, but with two small hooks only, and pretty fine gut.

David and I started away, and were at the foot of the lower gorge by
10 a.m., David behind me; and soon the fun was fast and furious, every
little fall and the pool below it, the worm no sooner in the bubbles
and froth than tug, tug, tug. "Lift him out, unhook him David and bait
again; no, the worm will do." Tug again; "Unhook him and bait this
time." Tug again. "Well, three out of that little hole is not so bad!"

David was disgusted at messing with such trash, as he termed it, but
soon even he warmed to it.

The waterfall had a nice pool scooped out by the falling water, and,
standing down stream below the fall, thirty came out of that place.

It was great fun to come across water and fish in these islands that
were totally unsophisticated.

We worked up and up for miles, until the burn--aye, and the fish
too--began to get very small, and at five o'clock we turned back,
fishing a few of the best places on our way. The waterfall gave but two
more, and I expect that was the last two in the pool.

Weighed at the lodge, deducting the basket, they scaled just 23-1/2lb.,
and counted out 188 trout, just eight to the pound, and pretty little
bright fellows they were.

David looked at them deprecatingly; repentance at being a party
to anything so derogatory had come over him, and he viewed them
philosophically, with the sole remark, "What a mess!"

My fishing was in low water. My son Douglas went up a few days after,
meeting a rise of water, and he also had a great number, but out of
places that I had not fished in low water.

The waterfall yielded none.

The burn was tried again on another day, but it was done for a season
or two; as in other things in the world, you can't eat a cake and have
it.

In August I took down my family party for their holidays. There would
be little or nothing to shoot, a few cock birds to pick out of the
broods and some sundries, of course. The boys could fish away for
trout and get a few odd salmon out of the Upper Thurso and Loch More,
but they were very coppery and red at that season.

During the first fortnight David and I hunted the whole of the ground,
killing the old cocks out of the broods when opportunity occurred.

The increase of birds was very satisfactory, quite 150 broods on the
ground, and fine broods too.

    Bag.        Dalnawillan and Rumsdale.

  Grouse             38-1/2 brace.
  Sundries           57-1/2 brace.

Dunbar had been very fortunate, and let Strathmore to an old
connection; rather more birds had been left by the scourge on the lower
beats of Strathmore than on Dalnawillan. Those beats are the best
ground in Caithness, and if there are any birds there they naturally
will be. Dunbar looked the matter well in the face, told the tale,
the whole tale, and let it on a seven years' lease, commencing, if
I remember right, with a rent of £300, increasing up to £575, or
thereabouts.

The gentleman who took it knew exactly what he was about. The good
years that would accrue after disease were before him.

The year after the expiration of the seven-year lease and cycle,
disease was again ravaging, and there was little or no shooting for two
or three years after that.

The new tenant nursed the birds the first season, killing only a few
cocks or so.

In September, with one of the boys, I went over to Orkney, to try the
fishing of the Loch of Stennes. We landed from the tub of a steamer
that plied between Scrabster and Stromness, after a terribly bad
passage across the Pentland Firth. The tide ran very strong, the wind
met it, and the steamer, built on the lines of a walnut shell, rolled
about in the trough of the sea.

We landed, and hiring a cart to carry our traps, tramped away to the
top of the loch in Harray parish, and lodged with Peter Flett, farmer
and miller.

The trout were most beautiful, equal to any sea trout, but not
plentiful, anyhow very stiff to rise; they ran all sizes. Our best day
to two rods was 17-1/2lb., the largest scaling 2lb. 6oz.

On one other day we had fish of 1lb. 4oz. and 1lb., and amongst our
take were some half-pound sea trout.

The loch was terribly ottered by the small farmers and crofters, but
with very coarse horse-hair tackle. Certainly they did not get many;
but, no doubt, that put them down from rising to the fly.

The ottering was not poaching, because every freeholder had the right,
and nearly all were freeholders.

I asked Flett where he got his land from. "My father," said he; "and
he had it from his father, and his father before him." I dare say if
Peter and I could have traced it we should have found that the title
commenced with his Scandinavian ancestors, who stole the land from the
Pict, who lived in an underground house designed after the pattern of
an improved fox-earth.

"What is done with the younger sons, Flett?"

"Oh, they go to the fishing, or into the Hudson Bay Co.'s employment."
That was primogeniture with a vengeance. I wonder what the land
reformers would have to say to that.

"Flett, what deeds have you to show?"--"Deeds! what do we want with
deeds?"--"Well, suppose you want to mortgage."--"Orkney people don't
mortgage," says Flett, with his nose in the air.

In a few days we had enough.

We loaded our traps on Peter's cart, and returned to Stromness, looking
at an underground Pict's house on the way, where perhaps Flett's
ancestor had disposed of the aborigines, by smoking them, and stopping
up the outlets, as you would stifle rats.

Also we saw the Stones of Stennis, which, as Druidical remains, rank
with Stonehenge.

We stopped on our way at the bridge that crosses the outlet of the
loch to the sea, to try for sea trout. The tide water comes up to the
bridge, and a little beyond, and from the bridge to the sea was about a
mile.

On the rise and fall of the tide we landed six sea trout weighing
6-1/2lb., the largest 2-3/4lb.

On the fall of the tide the sea trout stopped taking, and then the
sillocks came as fast as possible. We had seventy-nine of them in
little over an hour.

I was very much pleased with Orkney. The land was good, and the climate
was better than that of the mainland.

There were some grouse, and, as far as I could learn, the best moor
was in Harray parish, where we had been fishing.

The moor was a common, and the whole of the commoners joined in
granting a lease to the tenant of the shooting. I think the rent was
£35 a-year, and he took off about 200 brace of grouse, and a really
considerable number of snipe and plover, and I believe it was true that
there was no disease. The game sold for more than paid the rent.



SEASON 1876.


Pretty much a repetition of the previous season; grouse were increasing
fast, but none to spare for the gun.

I worked away at the cock birds, and let the boys get their hands in on
the outside beats, where the birds would not be missed, breaking them
in work as well as the dogs.

In the spring of this year, carrying out the idea propounded by
Dunbar, utilising my experience of American house building in wood,
of which I had taken careful particulars when in that country a year
or two previously, I built a small lodge near to Altnabreac station,
containing kitchen, parlour, and five bedrooms, and let it, with 12,000
acres of moorland, for three years--first year £200, second and third
year at £300 a year, including keeper, with a proviso that if my keeper
was of opinion that the birds could not be spared the bag should be
limited to 100 brace in the first year, and in that event I was to
return £100 of the rent.

I did limit them, and sent them a check for £100.

    Bag.        Dalnawillan.    Rumsdale.

  Grouse         112 brace.     100 brace.
  Sundries       54-1/2 "          ----

The railway was open and a station stuck down in the middle of the
moorland four miles from Dalnawillan Lodge and seven from Glutt, no
road, or footpath even, in any direction from the station.

It was stuck down in the centre of the moorland to take its chance.

For the use of Dalnawillan and Glutt Dunbar and I did our best to
induce the proprietor to make the four miles of road that was needed.

We offered during the tenancy of our leases to pay the proprietor six
per cent. on the £600, which was the estimated cost of the road, and
do the repairs ourselves, but of no avail. At last it was settled that
I should make the road and find the money, the cost, with interest at
five per cent., to be repaid to me by twelve equal yearly instalments,
of which the proprietor contributed half, Dunbar a quarter, and myself
a quarter. The road was made and open ready for use for the shooting
season of 1876.

       *       *       *       *       *

After about a fortnight at Dalnawillan I took a trip into Shetland with
my boy Charlie, to verify the wondrous tales of sea trout that were to
be had in every tidal stream and loch.

It was a miserable disappointment, every fish that could be had was
poached on the spawning beds and by any other means at any other time;
but on some of the outer islands, I believe, matters were better.

What there were were very fine fish; we had nine in all, four of which
weighed 6-1/2lb.

What a small world it is! Charley was fishing away in Brouster Loch in
waders up to his middle, when someone calls out: "Holloa, Charley,
what are you doing here?" And there was his class master at Clifton
College also up to his middle.

On our return to Caithness we had a horribly stormy passage from
Lerwick to Wick, putting in for the night at Kirkwall in Orkney, to
shelter from stress of weather.

Lerwick is a very pretty little town, the most northerly in Great
Britain, doing a good and lively trade in fishing matters, and having
a great many visitors in the season. For those cockneys who have
the blessed faculty of defying _mal de mer_, and enjoying bottled
porter and a pipe with the ocean in commotion--and my experience, so
far as it goes, is that in those northern latitudes it always is in
commotion--what can be a pleasanter or a cheaper sea trip than to go by
the Aberdeen boat from London Bridge to Aberdeen, and thence to Lerwick
_viâ_ Wick, and round the islands in the trading steamer, and home by
the West Coast.

Shetland from the outside looks very nice. It is indented in every
direction with fiords, or voes they call them there, with very fine
cliff scenery.

But the inside is dismal, the crofters and fishermen pare the turf and
heather for winter bedding for their cattle, and, what with that and
peat cutting for fuel, they leave the surface of the hills very black
looking and hideous.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is some good heather, perhaps about seven thousand acres, in the
main island, and it would, no doubt, carry some grouse, if any means
could be devised for destroying the swarms of greyback gulls, hoodie
crows, and hawks.

Not a living thing can show, without being pounced upon and devoured.
The only game of any description that I saw was two snipe; not even a
rabbit.

Before I went it had struck me as an anomaly that there should not be
grouse, and I looked well into the question of whether grouse could be
profitably introduced, but, looking at the small amount of moorland,
and the large cost, if not impossibility of destroying the vermin, I
gave up the notion. I notice from letters in the _Field_ and elsewhere
that others are agitating the question, and they will do well to
thoroughly bottom the question before incurring heavy responsibilities.

One thing that strikes a visitor is the incessant knitting on the part
of every woman and girl; no matter when or where, the knitting needles
incessantly ply. Carrying baskets of peats from the hills in creels on
their backs, still the needles ply in front.

Some of their knitting is very beautiful. The common goods are knitted
from imported yarn, but the beautiful shawls are knitted from yarn spun
from the fully-grown wool of the indigenous native sheep.

The wool is not clipped, but pulled when fully ripe.

The native sheep are of all colours, white, brown, yellow, &c., and
many piebald.

With these colours the varied colours of the best quality Shetland
shawls are derived from the natural colour of the wool, without dyeing.

Some of the shawls are exquisitely fine, and fetch large prices. For
one, many yards square, I gave £5. Of course it was a unique specimen,
and afterwards, in England, I was assured that it was a cheap purchase.
It could be doubled up not much larger than a pocket handkerchief.



SEASON 1877.


At last a gleam of sunshine. Seasons 1873, '74, '75, and '76, four long
years practically blank, and heavy expenses running the while; it was
a heartbreaking business, worse than my experience in Banffshire. But
at last I was to expect some moderate shooting for two guns, and my
expectations were realised.

    Bag.        Dalnawillan.    Rumsdale.

  Grouse        426-1/2 brace. 300 brace.
  Sundries        85-1/2  "        ----



SEASON 1878.


This was to be really good shooting for two guns.

My son Oliver was to be home from New York for a holiday, and I
reserved the shooting for him and myself, and very pleasant shooting we
had. We shot together--

    Bag.        Dalnawillan.    Rumsdale.

  Grouse        627-1/2 brace.  480 brace.
  Sundries       64-1/2   "       ----



SEASON 1879.


This was the eighth year that I had paid rental for this moor, and this
was the second year out of the eight that it would afford shooting for
more than two guns.

I had a very fine stock of birds upon the ground. I had nursed the
stock judiciously. I had not shot it down when recovering from disease,
and at last the moor was full of birds, and for the next two or three
years, until the scourge paid its next visit, we might shoot and hammer
away at the birds, without detriment. Nothing that we could do in the
way of shooting could possibly reduce the breeding stock below what it
should be, until disease again reduced it.

I had relet the Rumsdale side, with 10,500 acres, for three years, at
£300 per annum, leaving, say 13,500 acres to Dalnawillan shooting.

We laid ourselves out for a fine bag, and we had it.

I said to David, "Last season, shooting with Mr. Oliver, we made
together over six hundred brace. Now, we have treble the birds we had
to begin that season. If I go to work shooting steadily by myself,
say seven hours a day for four days a week, can I take off 600 brace
to my own gun and for once make a swagger bag?"--"Yes, you can," says
David.--"Then I will do it," responded I; so it was arranged to shoot
the moor in two parties, myself one party, and two guns in the other
party; each party taking the beats fairly in turn.

The second party of two guns was made up of the three elder boys and
a friend, shooting five days a week, weather permitting, taking their
turns alternately, the men out, going after snipe and ducks and fishing.

I started with 42 brace on the 12th, and on the 14th 52-1/2 brace, and
continued to make good bags. On August 26, my fifty-eighth birthday, I
came in with 50-1/2 brace; it was the second time over the beat, and on
September 15, in twenty-one days shooting, I numbered 617 brace, close
upon an average of 30 brace a day besides sundries.

Generally through Scotland moors had not fairly recovered their full
complement of birds, and I believe it was acknowledged that 617 brace
was the best bag in Scotland made that season to one gun in the first
five weeks shooting over dogs.

We had a fine time and a very enjoyable time, and up to the 16th of
September, when we went south, we had taken off 1138 brace.

In October I returned with two other men to shoot under the kite, and
we took off just 200 brace. When at Glenmarkie, I could do nothing with
the kite, the birds rolled up before it and away for a couple of miles.

October shooting in Caithness and Sutherland over dogs under the kite
when birds are plentiful, is very grand sport. It is the acme of point
shooting.

In October the air is crisp and bracing, there is plenty of walking,
and you are in the best condition, or you ought to be.

The kite is a large kite, much larger than the partridge kite used
in England, and is flown very high, and so covers a large extent of
ground. It is worked down wind in front of the gun, so the dog has to
work down wind and on ticklish birds; therefore I need not say that it
requires clever old experienced dogs. Many good August dogs cannot get
into it.

Packs of six to twelve birds rarely sit well; they rise at sixty to one
hundred yards, but the small lots and single birds sit fairly well,
rising at twenty to thirty yards.

They rise in front like a wisp of lightning, hardly well up before
they turn to the right or left and away behind you. They should be
taken just on the turn. It is very difficult to get in a second barrel
unless, as they turn and go past they are near enough for a skimming
side shot.

       *       *       *       *       *

Good driving shots have said to me that the man who can walk and kill
October grouse under the kite, and kill them well, can kill anything.

October sport with the kite is very uncertain. There may be too much
wind or too little, and in that month you sometimes get very bad
weather and more snow than is pleasant, and then of course birds are
very wild and unsettled.

Big bags cannot be made under the kite; an average of 15 brace per day
to a gun is very good. I never managed to make 20 brace; twice I have
made 19-1/2, and could generally average 15.

There is an impression that the kite puts birds off the ground, and
generally makes them wild; but I don't think so. Of course the beats
are changed, and my impression is that it has no more effect than an
eagle hovering and then going on.

Those who have kited and driven, tell me that driving disturbs and
unsettles the birds far more than the kite.

  Bag.      Dalnawillan.     Rumsdale.

  Grouse    1338 brace.      900 brace.
  Sundries   155-1/2 "         ----

A number of grouse were, in addition, killed by the keeper during the
winter months.

The total to my own bag was 674 brace of grouse, and 48-1/2 brace of
sundries.



SEASON 1880.


Another grand season, the best out of the seventeen years of the lease.

On the first and second days I shot by myself, taking off fifty-four
and forty-four and a half brace respectively. I was in very good form,
and began by getting sixteen brace without slipping a cartridge.

After the first two days we shot in two parties of two guns each. Up to
September 16, when we went south, we had 1284-1/2 brace.

In October I returned, with another man, to shoot under the kite, and
we made 188-1/2 brace.

  Bag.      Dalnawillan.    Rumsdale.

  Grouse     1473 brace.    1600 brace.
  Sundries    128-1/2 "       ----

The sundries included ninety-seven snipe, the greatest number ever made
in one season.

The Rumsdale party shot very hard almost every day to end of season.

A number of grouse were in addition killed by my keeper during the
winter.



SEASON 1881.


Grouse had culminated to their highest level, the highest ever known in
the record of the Dalnawillan moors, and were now to recede, and again
undergo the scourge.

In the spring, birds were looking well, and in great plenty.

We could not say that there was disease amongst them, in fact, we could
have conscientiously said that we had not seen a diseased bird. But,
later on, we saw barren birds, nests not so well filled as they should
be; and in August, many birds shabbily feathered on the legs, and thin
breasted.

There was nothing like the quantity of birds as in the previous August,
bad nesting would account for that. Some broods would, perhaps, jump
up, with one or two miserable chirpers in addition to one old bird, and
barren birds also were plentiful.

The moor was shot in two parties of two guns each, and afforded fair
sport.

  Bag.      Dalnawillan.    Rumsdale.

  Grouse     822 brace.     900 brace.
  Sundries    73-1/2 "        ----

We did not return in October, as the prospects were not sufficiently
encouraging.



SEASON 1882.


I was anxious about the birds, in fact, in my own mind it was a
foregone conclusion. But Black wrote in the spring to say that there
was a fair stock upon the ground, and looking pretty well, though now
and again seeing a bad bird, and he was inclined to think that disease
was to pass over with the brush of the previous year; but disease was
due, and I had my misgivings that history would repeat itself.

Nothing very particular occurred during the nesting season, and in
August we went down, expecting some fair shooting, but it was not so;
it was a great disappointment. With all our experience and careful
watching of the state of the birds, they had died off--imperceptibly
dwindled away since the spring.

Disease in this attack was very different in its aspect from former
attacks. They come on very suddenly, sharp and decisive; but on this
occasion I have no doubt but that it had been hanging about all through
1881, and also in the spring and summer of 1882, steadily wearing away
the birds bit by bit.

There was little to shoot, and I agreed with my neighbours that we
should all spare our birds, and nurse what were left. My tenant
at Rumsdale would not hold his hand, and shot away, to my serious
detriment, as it was the last year of his lease.

  Bag.      Dalnawillan.    Rumsdale.

  Grouse    186 brace.      300 brace.
  Sundries   94   "           ----



SEASON 1883.


Disease had worn itself through in the season of 1882, and birds were
clean, but very scarce, in the spring of 1883, and needed careful
nursing, so I went down for a few days, hunting the ground, and found a
sprinkling of birds on Dalnawillan, and next to none on Rumsdale.

I killed all the cocks I could, and Black followed them up after I left.

  Bag.        Dalnawillan.    Rumsdale.

  Grouse      53 brace.         ----
  Sundries    54 brace.         ----



SEASON 1884.


Dalnawillan, carefully considering the matter, could spare a few birds;
what breeding stock there was has done well, but there were not enough
birds to make it worth while to take down a party, so I let the place
for the season to two gentlemen, with a limit of 300 brace, of course,
at a small rent.

The attraction was the fishing and a pleasant lodge and surroundings
for their holiday.

By myself I went down for a fortnight to shoot on the Rumsdale ground,
to take off just what I thought could be spared.

I found pretty well of birds on the beats adjoining Dalnawillan, and
took off 170-1/2 brace.

A fair, but moderate, breeding stock was left on both moors.

  Bag.      Dalnawillan.         Rumsdale.

  Grouse     300 brace.        170-1/2 brace.
  Sundries    97-1/2 brace.     16 brace.



SEASON 1885.


Very pleasant shooting, bags not large, but enough to keep going; game
good and healthy.

I let Rumsdale to a gentleman, who shot by himself his own gun only.

  Bag.      Dalnawillan.     Rumsdale.

  Grouse   635-1/2 brace.    439 brace.
  Sundries  94 brace.          ----



SEASON 1886.


A very good season, both on Dalnawillan and Rumsdale. Shooting up to
Sept. 13th in two parties: of two guns each gave 1006-1/2 brace, and
in October a further bag of 205 brace to three guns; a most charming
fortnight's shooting.

  Bag.     Dalnawillan.     Rumsdale.

  Grouse  1211-1/2 brace.   673 brace.
  Sundries  88 brace.         ----

This season was to me a red letter year in Scotch sport; very
considerable success rewarded my personal endeavours in every way.

       *       *       *       *       *

During the month of April I fished on the Thurso and on Loch More, as
one of the party of eight rods, all fishing from Strathmore Lodge, and
I killed fifty-three salmon.

Sixteen of them, weighing 164-1/2lb., I made in the one day, the 15th,
to my own rod on No. 8 beat of the river. On that day good fortune
seemed to attend me at all points; they were taking surely in heavy
dead water pools, and I bagged every fish into which I bent the rod--a
most unusual circumstance. Many never showed a rise, they sucked the
fly under water.

The first fish damaged the fly, the next fourteen were taken with one
fly, a small silver-grey, no change of fly, but retied several times to
the single gut cast.

The last fish, a fifteen-pounder, I had moved in the morning, in
fact the first rise, and the last thing before leaving off I crossed
the river and changed for a larger size silver-grey as the light was
failing, and at that he came like a lion.

Not a single hitch or contretemps occurred during the day. Certainly
both myself and my gillie, Johnny Sinclair, were desperately careful,
examining and proving knots of the gut casting line after every fish.
We were in for a good thing, and nothing that care and attention would
do was neglected.

That was the best day ever made on a Thurso river beat and still holds
the record, and in all probability will continue to do so.

It was a very hard day's work; as the fish meant it, I meant it, and
I kept the fly going without intermission, with an interval of ten
minutes for lunch, from 9.30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The next day, a Saturday, and also the Sunday, I laid up in the lodge
with lumbago.

My good fortune still pursued me. My last fish at the end of the month
was upon Loch More, and was the heaviest fish of the season, viz.,
29lb., a magnificent clean run fish, and he was taken on the same
silver grey that had killed fourteen fish on the great day. That fly
killed twenty-three fish in the month, and is now assigned an honorary
post in the fly box.

At the end of June, having obtained the necessary permission from the
higher powers, I fished the Baden lochs in Sutherlandshire for trout
with the fly.

The lochs are three in number, and communicate, all on one level, by
two short water ways, and, collectively, they cover some miles of
ground.

Except to one shooting lodge they are nearly inaccessible, and the
boats upon the lochs, belonging to the lodges, even if they had been
available to me, were too large, needing two gillies to row them,
and for trout fishing a large boat is a great drawback; you can't go
to work too quietly, or too gently either, in boats or tackle. The
shepherds' boat was light enough, but unsafe.

It is a notion that Sutherlandshire lochs need a large gaudy fly, but
year by year I have been reducing the size of flies, and fining down
the gut.

Again, what is called a fishing breeze is a mistake: if it comes, of
course you must make the best of it; but to kill trout cleverly and
quickly let me have fine tackle, a light 10ft. rod, and just a ruffle
on the water, and if rain is falling and dimpling the water, the less
wind the better; of course, if you fish big gaudy flies and double
handed rods, you get little without a breeze.

To solve matters, I arranged to lodge with a shepherd not far from
the side of the top loch; he gave me a room, and made me pretty
comfortable, and with tea and whisky, good red fleshed trout, eggs, and
a ham to cut at, I got along pretty well. Anyhow, I was on the ground,
and close to my work, which was the main thing if I meant business.

I sent my own boat and gillie by rail, and then carted it over, so I
had the right boat for the work, and a safe boat too, which is a point
I always look to, as the squalls of wind get up very suddenly on those
large lochs amongst the mountains.

I fished with great success, commencing June 30, and fished for seven
consecutive days, Sunday, of course, excepted.

My total bag was 534 trout, weighing 198-1/2lb., which is an average of
over 28lb. per day; my best day was 113 fish, weighing 42-1/2lb.

I have not come across any trout fishing scores that will beat this
record of seven days fishing.

Fortune had again favoured me, excepting one day, when it was a blazing
sun; they were all good fishing weather.

When August came, to my own gun my bag of grouse was five hundred and a
half brace.

Of all sport I know nothing so deeply exciting as the steady head and
tail rise of a heavy salmon, say a 20lb. fish, and the firm tug that
you feel as he goes down.

Remember what Major Treherne says, "Don't strike, that tug has
fastened the hook if it is to fasten;" but there is nothing so quietly
satisfying as the feel on your hip of a heavy pannier of brown trout.

About the salmon you do as your gillie tells you, plant your foot on
that rock, or on that sod, and cast there, and the fish comes (when he
does come), as the fly swings round two yards below, or rather comes
when he does come, the coming being a long way the exception; but the
basket of brown trout has been your own doing--you have cast your
little flies yard by yard where your own experience tells you the brown
trout will come, and the gay little chap does come.

It is all your own act and deed: the gillie has had no hand in it,
except bewailing the loss of time after those messing trout, when
elsewhere there might be "just a chance" of the salmon that don't come.

I take it that it is every bit as sportsmanslike in its way to kill the
little brown snipe, or the little brown trout, as to stalk the monarch
of the glen, or rise the monarch of the stream. As regards the snipe,
he is good to eat, and the monarch of the glen certainly not. I suppose
for punishment of my sins, I once had to live for a week on the latter.

In passing, I may remark as to size of Scotch trout taken with the fly.

In my twenty-six years experience of Scotch fly fishing I have been
accessory to the taking of only four fish exceeding 2lb. each in weight.

It is my experience that, excepting two or three lochs in Caithness and
Sutherland, that the few fish that exceed 1lb., so soon as they attain
that weight become predatory, feeding on their own species, that flies
and insects will not maintain fish of that size in condition.



SEASON 1887.


Circumstances prevented my family going down (my boys were scattered in
professional pursuits), so I determined to let Dalnawillan for August
and September, and shoot at Rumsdale as a bachelor, and with two other
men.

The weather turned out very disappointing and unsettled--daily storm
showers; so consequently the results on both moors did not come up to
my expectations.

In Rumsdale (why, I don't know) the weather was worse than in any other
part of Caithness.

Only one day was I out without being interfered with by rainstorms.

In Dalnawillan the weather was rather better, and in Strathmore heavy
and dull, but not much amiss.

In October, I went down to Dalnawillan with two other guns. There bad
weather again followed us, but we managed to make 177 brace.

  Bag.      Dalnawillan.     Rumsdale.

  Grouse    1223 brace.      561 brace.
  Sundries    ----              24 "

This season was the culminating season of that cycle, and we ought
to have had better bags, but wet weather makes the birds wild and
skittish. I had expected 1200 brace on Dalnawillan, and 800 on
Rumsdale, as a minimum; the birds were there to do it.



SEASON 1888.


All things come to an end, and the seventeen years lease was drawing to
a close.

This would be my last season, and I shot at Dalnawillan with two of my
sons and a friend.

My family did not go down.

Unfortunately I was very lame with rheumatism in one leg, and could
only get about a few hours every other day, puddling over the near
beats and working the dogs myself, with a boy to lead a spare dog, and
a gillie to carry the birds.

The other party were out every day, weather permitting, two guns to the
party, and taking turn and turn about.

Disease was now again getting due. We had some indication the previous
season, and this season we had them all over the moor--barren birds,
small broods, a bad bird now and again; in fact, a repetition identical
with the commencement of the attack of 1881, and about the same result
as to bag, which, however, gave a fair amount of shooting.

On moors south and east there was little or no shooting; but Strathmore
on the north was much better.

  Bag.      Dalnawillan.     Rumsdale.

  Grouse    816-1/2 brace.   500-1/2 brace.
  Sundries   61      "         ----

On the 13th I went over to Thurso to say good bye to old friends, and
the next morning I was away south, thus terminating my grouse shooting
days and my long and pleasant connection with Caithness and its people,
and the wild moorlands of Dal-a-vhuilinn or the Miller's Dale.



A HARE DAY.


The blue, or alpine hare, is, as all Scotch sportsmen know, a great
nuisance in grouse shooting over dogs.

Do what you will there is in every dog an innate longing to chase or
point ground game in preference to birds, and if blue hares are shot
upon the grouse moor in the sight of the dogs, nothing that you can do
will prevent the dog from pointing or drawing on the track of other
hares.

On well regulated moors blue hares are looked upon as vermin, and all
possible are killed in the late winter months, when they are white, by
the keeper, and sent to market; but they make very small prices, not
more than 9_d._ to a 1_s._ after paying carriage.

When at Dalnawillan in October, before leaving it was the rule to have
a hare driving day on Ben Alasky with two or three guns, the result
being generally about ninety hares and a few brace of grouse, and the
number killed have been included in the record of sundries.

All the gillies, boys, shepherds, &c., were on that occasion pressed
into the service.

There were two hills adjoining one to the other, Ben Alasky and Glass
Kerry, both about 1100ft. high, and both were driven.

The party started about 11 a.m. from the lodge, beaters and guns
forming a line, taking the ground before them to about half way up
Glass Kerry, getting on the way two or three hares and a brace or two
of grouse.

Then the guns were sent forward to their posts.

The line of beaters sweep round the hill.

Perhaps fifteen to twenty hares may be had. Luncheon is then taken on
the ridge connecting the two hills.

After luncheon the beaters in line start well at the bottom of Ben
Alasky, gradually beating round and round in a spiral until they reach
the summit.

It may take two hours.

It is the habit of the blue hare to mount the hill, but some few break
back.

The guns are in three butts, the first butt on the summit of the hill,
and the other two on the slope below.

Odd grouse skim over the butts and fall to a clever shot.

At times the hares come up in considerable numbers, and the single gun
(no loader) gets hot; but if a hare escapes the one butt it gets across
the fire of another butt, and so very little escapes.

Then comes the collection of the slain and crippled, and loading men
and gillies with the slain.

The reader may say, Why not send a cart or pannier pony? simply because
the peat moss of Caithness is too soft to carry a pony.

It was a pleasing little shoot, and the weather at that time of year
being generally stormy, the outlook from the hill was very grand.



REMARKS ON THE OUTCOME OF DISEASE.


A perusal of the foregoing reminiscences will show that grouse
shooting, like other sports, is very uncertain, and that really good
shooting cannot apparently be looked for in more than four seasons out
of seven, consequent on the ravages of disease.

With the exception of portions of Southern Perthshire say the district
west of Dunkeld, embracing the Breadalbane Moors, which for many years
have had comparative immunity from disease, but will have it sooner
or later, the moors of Aberdeen, Banff, Inverness, Ross, Sutherland,
and Caithness are attacked at pretty regular intervals, and an old and
experienced hand may spot the years of disease pretty well in advance.

In Sutherlandshire the recovery is rather slower than in Caithness, and
the period of good shooting rather less.

On the smaller moors on the north-east of Caithness mixed up with the
arable land there is certainly very much less disease, and when the
birds get a touch, it is called a bad breeding season; as the tenant of
a very fair moor in that district put it, "We never have disease, but
we had a season of poor shooting as the birds did not breed that year."
Of course, that meant disease.

I take it that in that district, the climate being better, the ground
carrying few birds and being sprinkled in patches mixed with arable,
that the risk of contagion is less, besides which, from the tendency of
birds to draw down from the higher to the lower grounds in the storms
of winter, the gaps caused by disease get filled up.

The same remarks will apply to Orkney, and, more favourably still,
excepting that they do not fill up from the higher ground; but in
Orkney the moors are very small, and no great quantity of grouse.

Are we to draw our conclusion from the experience of previous years,
not of one cycle, but of several.

If we are to avail ourselves of past experience, the inference derived
is that disease does run in cycles, and that it is a provision of
Providence to ensure the survival of the fittest, and thus prevent the
gradual decadence of the grouse.

It would appear that grouse shooting runs in years pretty much thus:

  1st year.--Say disease; shoot down and stamp out as far as possible.

  2nd year.--A jubilee; but shoot old cocks.

  3rd year.--A jubilee; but shoot old cocks.

  4th year.--Moderate shooting; be careful not to overdo it to the
  serious detriment of the good years before you.

  5th year.--} Grand shooting. Shoot down all
  6th year.--} you can, and so get off all you can
  7th year.--} before disease does it for you.

But if the moor be shot ever so lightly in the second and third years
it is simply killing the goose for the golden egg, your moor will not
recover its stock and give good shooting until the seventh year or the
eve of the next cycle.

The laird will say, "Eh! I shall get breeding stock from my
neighbours;" but what if his neighbours are at the same foolish game.

My own experience has been not to let a moor, excepting on lease, until
I am quite certain that it can properly afford the number of birds to
which I may limit it, and I think that I have pretty clearly shown that
it will not afford birds at all in the first and second years, perhaps
a few in the third, the killing of old cocks excepted, which should be
done by the keeper.

The present modern practice of letting moors from year to year, quite
irrespective of whether from the ravages of disease there are grouse
to afford shooting, and so leading to the destruction of the little
breeding stock that may exist, has ruined and destroyed the reputation
of many fine moors that will carry heavy stocks of birds if properly
treated.

They year after year yield little or no sport, and naturally get a bad
repute until they are again caught by disease and shelved for further
years.

       *       *       *       *       *

The laird has to make up his mind to one of two options:

1. To let his moor on lease at a low reasonable rent; or

2. To retain his moorland, and nurse the birds until the moor is full,
and then let at a higher rent either for one year or more.

Any other course is suicidal to him in the long run; he may deceive his
client, and perhaps himself, and get a heavy rent for one year and then
he is done.

In the season of 1883, with a full knowledge that the moor has been
cleaned out with disease and over shooting in 1882, I was asked, will
you let me Rumsdale with a limit of 150 brace for £100.

My reply was, that firstly there was not 150 brace upon the moor, and
that if I let it I should be cheating him, and that if I did, shooting
the little there was would do me far more damage by the loss of the
breeding stock than the value of the £100, or three or four times the
£100.

It is difficult to educate people to the knowledge of the fact that the
breeding of grouse is like the breeding of other animals or birds, and
that grouse are not in some mysterious way showered down by Providence
like manna in the desert.

It is appreciated as regards pheasants, but appears that it has yet to
be learned as regard grouse.

I have remarked that as a rule moors are more readily let, and higher
rents are obtained in the disease year, the year following the cycle of
three or four big years, than at any other period.

Men are jubilant and excited over the successes of the three or four
previous years, the prestige and the glamour are fostered by those in
the interest of letting, and folks are unwilling to believe, as I was
in the season of 1866, that such magnificent sport can collapse almost
at once to nothing.

Disappointments result for a couple of years or more, and then moors
become very unsavoury, and really good places are on hand, and at
moderate rents for the ensuing three or four years.

It is evident that if history is to repeat itself, that, looking at the
cost of keeper and other expenses, it is cheaper to rent for three or
four years at a high rent than to take for seven years at a low rent,
taking your chance, or, more properly speaking, the certainty, of the
fat and the lean.

Anyone about to take a moor of fair repute may, by taking the necessary
trouble before he signs the agent's agreement to pay £500 or £1000 for
what Providence may send him, ensure himself the sport represented by
the high rent.

According to the amenities of the place--for the number of brace to
be killed is not the only factor in fixing the price--the rent will
vary from 10_s._ to 20_s._ a brace, and an intending tenant should not
grudge it if he gets the sport.

Let the moor be run with dogs by a competent keeper, and he will tell
you if there is sufficient breeding stock to breed the promised 1000
brace.

Then ascertain, _positively and absolutely_, when the last attack of
disease occurred; it will be the year after the last successful season.

Then take the moor for a term of years, ending in the seventh year from
the date of the disease year.

Those moors that suffer the most in their disease year, like the moor
in Strathspey, referred to in Season 1871, will probably afford the
heaviest shooting in their good years.

Grouse, of course, have other drawbacks besides disease.

If the moors are on high ground, they are liable to have eggs frosted
in late frosts, or young grouse killed by late snowstorms, as occurred
in Season 1864 on Glenshee. Again, you may have a lazy, whiskey
drinking keeper, who neglects vermin-killing; but, as a rule, once out
of the egg, the young bird is safe.



HEATHER BURNING AND DRAINING.


Indiscriminate burning of heather is another great drawback on
Sutherland and Caithness moors.

In Caithness, it will take fourteen or more years to grow deep, good
heather on the hill moors, and in Sutherland eight or ten.

The upper moors of Caithness, and also of parts of Sutherland, carry
very little really good heather; in fact, only on the burn banks or dry
knolls does it grow.

The remainder of the ground is broken, knotty peat bog, with short
stunty heather, and stretches of deer grass, with wet flows on the
upper flats. All good shooting ground in fine weather, and birds like
it then.

Birds rely on the deep heather for shelter and food in the winter. Burn
that out, and they go where they can find it, and don't return. It is
just the same as if you burn down a crofter's house and his crops, he
must move on to somewhere else.

Some of the best moors in Caithness have been ruined, and cannot
be recovered for very many years, to the very serious loss of the
proprietors, from incessant burning and shooting down breeding stock
after disease, both attributable to the almost culpable negligence,
certainly ignorance, of those in charge of the regulation of the
burning and the letting of the moors.

The burning is a far more serious business than the shooting down of
stock.

One fool of a factor did say to me (he is dead and gone, or I would not
name it), "Perish every grouse, before a blade of grass shall suffer."

The sheep rent on the moor to which the above referred is gone because
sheep do not now pay on that ground, and the grouse rent--the best rent
of the two--is also gone, because the heather is burned off clean as
the back of your hand.

In Dalnawillan, heather burning has been with me a constant wrangle
with the proprietor or his representatives, or the sheep farmers, no
matter the clear agreements to the contrary, protecting the heather.
If I was fighting anybody's battle, it was in the interest of the
proprietor; the question was one far more important to him than to me.

Burning, to do it properly, is a very expensive process on such
extensive ranges as the Caithness moors.

In Dalnawillan and Rumsdale, it needed four parties during the early
part of April, to do it properly, four men in each party. One man to
kindle, and keep on kindling; the other three men armed with birch
brooms, watching and regulating the course of the fire, beating it out
where it unduly spreads, or beating it out altogether to rekindle in
case of a change of wind in a wrong direction.

Unless the weather is quite dry for a week or more, the rough ground
and deer grass, both of which it is most desirable to burn in the
interest of grouse and sheep, will not burn, and when your staff
of men are collected and got together, a sudden storm of rain or
snow comes on, and you are delayed for a week, and perhaps put off
altogether for that season.

Naturally, if you are prevented by weather from burning, the sheep
farmer is annoyed, because he does not get his burning done. He argues,
"Let me burn; I will burn as much in a day as you will in a week." And
so he would, but it would be the fine old heather that will burn, and
the shooting value of the moor destroyed for many long years.

I do not say that sheep farmers or their shepherds desire to burn,
and damage the shooting tenant, and also the proprietor (not that the
latter or his factor understand the question or appreciate the damage)
by burning out patches of good heather, the burning of which destroys
the cover appertaining to hundreds of acres, and so destroys the
shooting.

One shepherd certainly, said he liked the ground burned, because it was
easier walking.

But if the shepherd is to burn, what can he do by himself.

He can do no more than kindle a fire, and let the winds of heaven take
it how and where it likes.

To get a good fire, he will get his back to the wind, and kindle a
well-heathered burn, and make a good clear sweep for half-a-mile, and
so destroy the shelter of five or six hundred or more acres for a dozen
years or more.

I have seen two miles in a blaze at one time, but not on my ground; it
was too well looked after.



SURFACE DRAINING.


I am convinced that much may be done in improving grouse ground in the
north of Scotland. Make ground habitable and suitable for grouse, and
they will come without any further trouble.

Grouse like wettish ground, especially in hot weather, presuming that
there is dry ground available for them to nest upon, and feed and sit
upon in wet weather.

Now, by judicious surface draining, much may be done.

When the ground slopes from the low hills, the surface water works
over the face of the ground, thoroughly soddening it, and rotting the
heather that would otherwise grow.

The drains are simply small sheep drains cut on the surface, slantingly
across the slope, wherever there is fall enough just to run the water.

The drain intercepts the water, runs it off, preventing it from running
over the ground below the drain, and immediately dries the ground
immediately _below the drain_. Heather grows some yards wide, and there
the birds will sit and nest, and you have created increased grouse
ground.

The expense, in view of the benefit is very trifling. A pair of
drainers during the summer months, say a cost of £50, will get over a
very large extent of ground.

The proprietor was constantly endeavouring to sell the property, in
which event my lease would drop through, and he was impervious to any
arrangements as to draining, otherwise I should have done the whole of
the Dalnawillan ground. As it was, I did do some odd bits, at my own
cost. One beat, near the lodge, I scored over with a few hundred yards
of draining, and converted it from a bad to a good beat.

Such draining, of course, improves the ground for sheep as well as
grouse.

I presume the time will come when proprietors will see that profit will
accrue from cultivating their moors for the purpose of carrying grouse,
by endeavouring in all ways to improve the heather by judicious burning
and draining, in sufficient amounts to carry as large a stock as is
reasonable for the extent of ground. I see no reason whatever, if you
offer as favourable conditions to the birds, why they should not be as
plentiful on ground A as on ground B; as a matter of fact they will be.



DOGS.


To some men (certainly it is so to me) one great element of the
pleasure of walking shooting _versus_ standing shooting, viz., the
driving of grouse, partridge, and pheasant, is the working and use of
dogs where they are useful and essential to success, in the particular
sport for which they are used.

Do not let it be inferred that I am detracting from driving, or the
skill and experience that is necessary to do it well, both in beaters
and guns.

Each sport is delightful in its way and in its season.

The Yorkshire grouse cannot be brought to bag without driving, and so
with partridges and pheasants in certain counties.

But I do feel more delight in hunting the game than in having the game
hunted towards me.

I have always worked a perfect retriever broken by myself and kept to
myself, a dog keen to his work, and who keeps by your side, not at
heel, as he needs to see what is doing, if he is to help you to his
uttermost, who keeps his nose on the alert, and tells you by a look
when you are passing a close sitting partridge or rabbit or hare in its
form, and who tells you if the partridge covey is still in front or run
up the right or left furrows of the swedes, who stops with you until
told to go, and then goes quietly back to where he saw the bird drop,
and takes up the scent of the dead or running bird; not a dog who,
when told to go rushes and tears about hoping to flush the winged bird
into sight, or put up and chase some wretched rabbit, which is far more
to his taste.

I have never done any good with pedigree dog-blood as shown on the show
bench. Of course, on the show bench it is not pretended for one moment
that any good is to accrue in a sporting sense; all is sacrificed to
shape, size, and coat, which in a sporting dog get it if you can, but
probably you have to do without some points if you get brains and
keenness.

Napoleon, Wellington, and Gen. Sheridan were all small men, and their
physique would not have commanded prizes on the show bench.

Again, for field trials dogs are bred up for that business only, and
are rarely used for sporting.

At a field trial you want a bold pretentious dog that will go in and
do just one or two things in a certain form, stand hares and rabbits,
if he does it in proper form, and as to whether he is an industrious
good worker, that is a matter of indifference. A really good dog, if a
little shied by the crowd round him, will be quite out of the running
in a field trial. I don't say but that some field trial dogs may
possess high qualities that are useful as a cross in breeding.

I raise no objection to dog shows, they afford pleasure to numbers of
people. What I desire is that the inexperienced sportsman shall not
look in that direction for his sporting dogs.

Caithness birds, especially in catchy weather, run very much when
pointed and drawn upon. Clearly, like a red-leg partridge, he tries
his legs well before he will take to wing. Sometimes they will road
over 100 yards or more, and it is an unexplained mystery to me how a
brood will cross a burnt and bare patch in front of you as fast as you
can comfortably walk, without showing themselves.

Old solitary cocks are terrible fellows for this, and if your dog does
not foot them fast they will outwalk you, and ultimately rise wild.

One old brute pointed well fifty yards within the march, took me such
a distance across the Dunbeath march that I began to be so thoroughly
ashamed of my trespass, that when he did rise and drop to the shot, I
felt half inclined to let him lie and come away.

To my mind working a brace of dogs is a mistake.

Rap, we will say, gets birds and Ben backs him; certainly a very pretty
picture, if the dogs do it well.

The birds draw on, and Rap draws on, Ben remains behind, stands like a
fool--the poetry of the picture is gone, perhaps he draws on in Rap's
footsteps.

Besides if you want to work your dogs in pairs you will need double the
number in the kennel, ay, and an extra dog breaker as well.

In the course of a six or seven hour day, to work a party, you will
need, if you work them singly, three experienced dogs and two younger
ones coming on to work.

In Caithness and Sutherland necessarily wide ranging a little over two
hours early in the season, is enough for an old dog, and less for a
young one coming on, and four days a week is about as much as they
will do, and if the gun shoots four days a week, it is as much as he
can do to shoot properly. A man who is careful of himself will get more
birds in four easy days, than the enthusiast who works long hours and
six days.

If you want to get birds, keep yourself and dogs and gillies fresh and
in good form, and so that when birds rise they shall also fall.

I have heard of dogs that will work all day long and every day as well,
but I have never yet been fortunate enough to come across that very
remarkable and desirable strain.

Here let me give a sketch that is no mere flight of fancy.

The 26th of August, my birthday.

It is a sunny day with a gentle balmy wind, and the heather, which is
full in bloom, is dusting your boots white with its pollen.

It is a lazy day for birds, and they will not much care to run.

Daisy is ranging pretty wide, and, getting an indication of birds,
pulls up and looks over her shoulder towards her master.

"Has she birds, David?" "She is no sure." You walk slowly up to Daisy,
she draws on, and her point gradually stiffens; another twenty yards
and she stops full point; you both walk on, the old cock bird rises
first at twenty-five yards, and he goes down, you load, and the hen and
three young birds rise within ten yards.

Take it calmly, don't smash up the old hen by taking her too soon,
and, after her, down with one of the young birds; load quietly and
quickly. Daisy stops where she is; up gets another bird and that goes
down.

Smoker is sent forward, and he gathers and brings in the old hen and
two young birds from out of the deep heather.

No doubt the old cock is a runner.

David and Daisy sit down whilst I go forward and put Smoker on to where
the old bird dropped.

We sit and watch him; see the old dog threading the scent at a quick
pace in and out amongst the peat hags.

Oh dear, the bird has taken down the burn and we may lose him.

But no; an hundred yards below out comes Smoker from the burn
triumphant, with the old cock, which he delivers up without a scratch
save the broken pinion.

Daisy is now away to find a fresh point. What has Smoker pointing
there, with a look that says as plain as dogs can speak, that fool,
Daisy, who thinks so much of herself in her hurry to get fresh points,
has left a close sitting bird in that tuft of good heather.

Yes, Smoker is right, as he always is in all he does, and another bird
is flushed and bagged.

The brood was seven, and now but two away, thanks to the studious care
and intelligence of my two four-footed friends.

And what fine birds, with their white speckled breasts! the young ones
as large as the old ones.

[Illustration: Daisy on Point.]

We pile them in a heap for the gillie to collect as he comes along.

Dear old Daisy, there were better dogs with better noses and grander
action, but the loving creature did her very best to bring birds to bag
by care and gentleness, and she did it too.

That retriever, Smoker, the second of his name, has now passed away,
and his place taken by a worthy third, was a character.

Amongst other things he was born defective in the power of propagation.

I bred him from a bitch that I bought in Norfolk solely to breed him
from; the father was a dog belonging to a keeper of Col. Kenyon Slaney.

There were only two dogs in the litter, all the others being bitches.

He was a poor puny thing, and would have been consigned to the bucket
with sundry of his sisters, had there been other dogs in the litter.

But as he grew, and he grew fast, he showed signs of great intelligence.

When old enough, he was sent down to Dalnawillan, to David's care, and
there again I saw him when nearly full grown, when there fishing in
June.

He knew me again. "Is he steady and quiet, David?"--"Oh, yes." So we
took a walk.

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, as much as to say, "I
wonder if he means to be my master: I will have a try;" so he chases
a lamb. I came up with him; he drops the lamb, and away again after
the same lamb; aye, and once again after that. The lamb takes to the
river, and I after him. I get hold of the lamb and take it ashore, and
put it by my side. It was not really hurt, but in a sad state of mind.

At last, up comes Smoker, and receives a real roasting, that satisfies
him as to who is to be master, and I trust that retributive justice
also satisfied the injured feelings of the lamb.

He was, without exception, the rankest and most determined puppy I
ever handled. At times I thought I must give him up; but he repaid my
trouble.

At home in the autumn, a pair of partridges were down in some deep feg
he was put upon. Up jumped a hare, far more interesting to Smoker, and
he away after. Whistle, whistle, yes until you be hoarse; he would not
come.

Again the question had arisen as to who was to be master, so I sat
myself down a good half-hour before the guilty rascal came to heel; but
when he did, and he knew perfectly well what was coming, a hazel stick,
cut specially for his education, effectually reminded him.

He lay on the ground, and howled and moaned. Whips were of no effect,
he laughed to scorn such mild trifles.

Dogs never mind being thrashed, if they deserve it. Don't do it oftener
than you can help, and then do it effectually.

Smoker gets up, wags his tail, has a bit of biscuit to cement renewed
friendship, limps a good deal, and goes to work, and cleverly gathers
first one and then the other bird.

Only for me would he work. Not a dump did he care for keeper or any
other body, but just went his own wilful way.

He was gentle as a lamb. Little children and small dogs might do as
they liked with him. My daughter's pug regarded him with a mixture of
intense jealousy and reverence, but that did not prevent Toby from
occasionally attacking him tooth and nail, much to the amusement of
Smoker.

He was free of the library, and a constant partaker of five o'clock tea
when not out at work.

For many years Smoker, in the season, worked on grouse, with Daisy, a
setter bitch, and with other dogs.

There was great jealousy between him and Daisy, but both good natured
over it.

Daisy was very fond, if she could manage to elude attention, of quietly
retrieving a bird, and it was as good as a play to observe her delight
and his indignation at her encroachment upon his part of the work.

I could tell endless tales of his ability and intelligence.

When not at work, he was the laziest of dogs, but any symptoms of
shooting about he was all life. His great object was, then, to get hold
of my shooting cape. He had some idiotic notion that he had a lien upon
me by so doing, and that I was bound to go out to shoot.

On one occasion I was away from home, and a lady in the house induced
him to walk with her in the garden.

As she went through the porch, she took my walking stick.

Smoker, presently, in his quiet, gentlemanly way, took hold of the
stick, as the lady thought, to carry it. But no, Smoker walks back and
deposits it in the porch, as much as to say, "None of that, when my
master is away."

In my time, I have had many good pointers and setters.

I have no prejudice as to which, but pointers are more easy to break;
but, then, in those northern latitudes they do not stand the cold so
well as setters do.

In breeding, you may reckon that out of four puppies, you will not get
more than two out of the four that turn out fairly well, and for dogs
of exceptional intelligence not one in twenty; ay, in fifty.

Rap, who pointed my first Scotch grouse was, take him all in all, as
good a pointer as I ever had.

Grace, a setter bitch that I worked at the same time as Rap, was
charming in every way.

She was a puppy of the Rûg breed from North Wales. How I came by her
I forget, and from her I bred many good dogs, but never anything of
exceptional excellence.

The best setter I ever handled was Ben, an ivory coloured setter, a
first cross between a Gordon and a Laverack.

He was perfect in his work, but a bit rank if the whip was spared.

He would go to the dead birds after they were down if he possibly
could, that is, if he had the least licence granted to him.

Pointing and retrieving were all one to him.

He would watch a towered or a stung bird, and let him go and he would
go straight, judging distance well, a thing very few retrievers can do;
and if the bird did not rise again, he would to a certainty bring him.

The only retriever that I have seen judge distance with a towered bird
was a large black dog belonging to the late Sir Stephen Glyn. He marked
the bird; the ground being difficult he went, not straight, but across
other fields to the right of his bird.

I never did any good with red Irish setters, but it does not follow
that, others may not have done so, but I very much doubt it.

I was persuaded to buy a beautiful young pedigree bitch puppy,
warranted from dogs that on both sides were worked on grouse. She was
perfect in shape and colour, but the veriest fool that ever ranged a
moor.

After a season's experience not work, for she never did any work except
range beautifully, David said that I had better shoot her.

No, I said; I will advertise her in _The Field_, and I did as follows:--

"A very handsome ---- pedigree red Irish setter bitch, useless on the
field, no nose; probably make a winner on the show bench."

I had several applications, and got a few pounds for her, which I
handed to David.



DISEASE.


Touching on the very vexed question of the cause of disease, I will say
very little; as to its effects I have said a great deal.

If the poultry fancier keeps a lot of old birds about him, or too thick
upon the ground, disease breaks out amongst them.

I take it that on all moors at the end of six and seven years after
the last attack, there will be a lot of old birds, and, as with the
poultry, disease breaks out and is contagious, and Nature asserts her
rights for the survival of the fittest.

The districts west of Dunkeld are probably the healthiest in all
Scotland, and so there birds resist disease, but disease has even there
made a clearance, and will again.

Yorkshire grouse are now all driven; the old birds come first and
are killed off, and we all know that since driving came into vogue,
Yorkshire birds are far more healthy.

Were it permissible to hunt the ground in the northern Scotch counties
at end of July, and kill off the old birds of the brood, which could be
readily done, it would probably stamp out, or at any rate, postpone,
the attacks of disease.



WILDFOWL.


One other matter is worthy of note in Caithness, and that is the steady
yearly decrease of wildfowl.

The upper Caithness moors are breeding ground for wildfowl, geese,
ducks, widgeon, teal, plover, and snipe, all, or nearly all, make their
way down to the lower ground, so soon as they can flap or fly.

They are not killed in the country to any extent, and if reduced by
shooting, it must be by the punt guns in the south, wielded by Sir
Ralph Payne Galwey and his colleagues.

As to golden plover, where seventeen years back there were a dozen
pairs in the spring time, there will not be more than one or two.

A number of arctic birds nest on the flows, gulls of various kinds--the
skua gull, redshanks, and greenshanks (a rare bird), black ducks,
divers, and many others.

In the late October, there are considerable flocks of snow buntings.



CONCLUSION.


My tale is now told. Despite the many bad seasons, the many
disappointments, the rod and the gun have kept me going, more or less,
year by year, and will, I trust, again, upon the home manor, the
trout loch, and the salmon pool, and I have nothing to regret in my
Glenmarkie and Dalnawillan leases.

They have afforded me, occasionally, splendid sport, and endless
pleasure to my family and to myself.

The fine air of Caithness, direct from the Arctic Pole, the good water,
and the healthy exercise, have contributed to their good health and
mine, and to their well being, far more than trips to the English
coast, or the Continent, whilst the lads have been made good sportsmen
with rod and gun, and their holiday pursuits have given them genuine,
honest tastes, as well as healthy recreation.



SUMMARY.


Twenty-four years of Glenmarkie and Dalnawillan leases have resulted in
nine splendid seasons; five middling ditto; one very middling; and nine
with practically no shooting.

On Dalnawillan and Rumsdale moors, the number of grouse killed by
sportsmen were as follows:--

             Dalnawillan.  Rumsdale.        Total.
              Brace.        Brace.          Brace.

  1872        1098           ----           1098
  1873         151           ----            151
  1874        ----           ----           ----
  1875          38-1/2       ----             38-1/2
  1876         112           100             212
  1877         426-1/2       300             726-1/2
  1878         627-1/2       480            1107-1/2
  1879        1338           900            2238
  1880        1473          1600            3073
  1881         822           900            1722
  1882         186           370             556
  1883          53           ----             53
  1884         300           170-1/2         470-1/2
  1885         635-1/2       439            1074-1/2
  1886        1211-1/2       673            1884-1/2
  1887        1223           561            1784
  1888         816-1/2       500-1/2        1317
            ----------      --------      ------
            10,512          6,994         17,506

  Yearly       618-1/2       411-1/2        1,030
  average

In addition, in the seasons of 1879, '80, '81, '86 and '87, a
considerable number of grouse were killed in the winter months by the
keeper.

[Illustration]



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