A HIGHLAND LAIRD 31 



his seat is pretty much at the back of the world ; 

 although his precarious posts are delivered to him 

 by boat and steamer, and the landscape is wild enough 

 in all conscience yet the climate on the lower levels 

 is anything but ungenial, as is shown by the shrubs 

 that thrive in luxuriance in his wife's romantic little 

 flower-garden. As for the game, in point of variety, 

 he has nearly everything that man need desire. You 

 have magnificent roe-drives in the woods and the 

 rough ground that lie along the shores of the loch. 

 You may walk up the graceful animals like hares 

 among the bracken under the birches ; and many 

 a merry day the laird has there in autumn, when he 

 has them running in rings round his post among the 

 tree-trunks to the music of his lively little beagles. 

 Along the scattered corn-fields in the strath at the 

 loch-head, there are plenty of coveys of the small 

 hill-partridges, where you may amuse yourself pleasantly 

 enough when the weather is wet and the grouse are 

 wild ; while as you wade through the marshy ground 

 that is overflowed from time to time by the river, you 

 have the snipe getting up in wisps all about you. As 

 for the grouse, of these there are any reasonable 

 quantity. The beats are long it is nothing to walk 

 six or eight miles before you think of uncoupling the 

 dogs and the walking is rough ; but then you can get 

 fair shooting till late in the year, for the coveys are 

 in no hurry to pack. And such shooting as it is, for a 

 man who has the soul of a poet or the eye of an artist ! 

 As you gradually mount higher and higher the views 



