104 A HUNDKED YEARS 



time till I got a stag. Although no one believed such 

 a small boy could kill a stag, I got two the very first day, 

 one of them with a funny little head of twelve points which 

 I still possess, and on the third day we returned to the 

 castle in triumph. For years afterwards I went there 

 for long visits, and what bags I used to make of grouse 

 and golden plovers, besides stags ! One day I got 

 five stags right away on the Harris march. I remember 

 as a lad of fifteen or sixteen starting on foot from the 

 castle, and on the home beat shooting thirty-six brace 

 of grouse over dogs with my muzzle-loader, and after my 

 return dancing all night at a ball given in the castle to 

 the townspeople. 



The Lews was a wonderfully sporting island in those 

 days. A connection of mine, a Captain Frederick 

 Trotter, used to get as many as twelve hundred brace at 

 Soval, besides endless snipe and golden plovers, while 

 hundreds of woodcock used to be shot out on the open 

 moors over dogs in the winter. And now, as on the 

 opposite mainland, game is nearly extinct. 



That summer, when I was ten, I made my first attempt 

 at salmon-fishing in the Ewe, and was much more 

 successful than I have ever been since. There had been 

 a great drought, and towards the end of June came 

 a big flood, and I was given a small new salmon-rod 

 and put in the charge of Sandy Urquhart. He and his 

 older brother Hector, whom he succeeded, were the best 

 hands who ever cast a flv on the Ewe. Wonderful to 

 say, I killed twelve fish in the first two days, the heaviest 

 !27J pounds, and my little arms were so tired each day 

 by about two or three o'clock that I could fish no longer 



