122 A HUNDRED YEARS 



Ormscaig and Bualnaluib crofter townships, and the 

 small farm of Inveran. That gave me a good deal more 

 room, and my annual bags became much heavier and 

 more varied. Especially was this the case after the 

 year 1862, when I became the actual owner of Inverewe, 

 and added some five thousand more acres to it by the 

 purchase of Kernsary. Mellan was some distance away, 

 and motors had not even been dreamed of then; but 

 my younger brother, Francis, had built and endowed a 

 beautiful Girls' School at Bualnaluib for the benefit of 

 the daughters of the numerous surrounding crofters, 

 and had placed in it as teacher a daughter of John 

 Fraser, my grandfather's old gardener at Conon, who 

 looked upon herself as one of the family retainers. I 

 used, therefore, to put up at the Bualnaluib school-house 

 for two or three nights at a time and shoot over the 

 crofter hill grounds, which made three good beats. 

 This I did chiefly in November and December, and 

 delightful shooting it was. 



I did not, perhaps, make what farther south would 

 have been called big bags, but I used to get from twelve 

 to fifteen brace and sometimes over twenty brace of 

 grouse a day to my own muzzle-loader, and always a few 

 woodcock or teal, snipe or ducks. As for golden plover 

 and rock-pigeons, there was no place like it for them; 

 and there were besides a good many coveys of partridges 

 and many brown and blue hares. In short, on Mellan 

 and the Isle of Ewe there was everything a boy sports- 

 man could possibly desire. How constantly do I still 

 dream of those happy days even now in my old age ! 



I see by my game-book that one year — in 1868 — I 



