EDITOR'S PREFACE 



His heart was in the open, and it was not long before he 

 abandoned the vain attempt to harness mind and body to 

 office work. It seems to have been about the year 1833 

 that he resigned the clerkship, and went forth free — if free 

 he could be calledwho, having made a false start in life and 

 being the reverse of affluent, seemed likely to drift without 

 either prospect or purpose in life. 



Howbeit, fortune favoured him, and he fared better than 

 strictmoralists would admit that he deserved. Hiskinsman, 

 the fourth Lord Bolingbroke, seems to have understood 

 and sympathised with St John's passion for the wild, for 

 he lent him his shooting box at Rosehall in Sutherland, 

 and there the young fellow took up his abode. 



Now, if it was the desire of St John's family to send him 

 into decent exile, that could scarcely havebeen accomplish- 

 ed within the limits of Great Britain more effectively than 

 at Rosehall, which stands on the left bank of the Cassley, 

 a short way above its junction with the Oykell. It is true 

 that eight or nine miles of good road now connects Rose- 

 hall with Lairg station on the Highland Railway; buteighty 

 years ago there was neither railway nor anything that a 

 pampered modern tourist would recognise as a road. I n the 

 early 'thirties access to the heart of Sutherland from Lon- 

 don required about as much expenditure of time and money 

 as would now suffice to carry one to Bagdad. Only to a few 

 venturesome Southerners had the charms of Highland 

 sport been revealed, for Scrope did not publish his Art 0/ 

 Deerstalking t.\\\ 1838 and Tom Tod Siodda.ri' s Ang/er's 

 Companion first appeared in 1847. 



Arriving at Rosehall, Charles St John found himself in 

 vii 



