Grouse Shooting. 119 



loch, too ; it had a good reputation as a trout loch, and held ferox which 

 ran well ; and in the end of A ugust and early in SBptember, if the water 

 suited, salmon got that far in the river, and some few into the loch. 



The moor was a capital admixture of mountain and flat, with fine 

 sheltered ravines running up Ben Darroch, which, as old Donald the 

 keeper said, "were joost crawling wi' groose at times," and in the moister 

 hollows there was a good sprinkling of black game. I took a couple of 

 days over the moor and found an ample promise of paired birds if the 

 breeding season turned out well, as seemed likely, for the year was 

 forward and the lower snows away, and there seemed plenty of shelter 

 on the moor, the heather having been burnt on system, and not on 

 " happy go lucky." Altogether I was so favourably taken with the place 

 that I resolved to advise Charley to " declare on " without delay, and 

 the more so as I learnt that a friend of a neighbouring proprietor had 

 been over it only a few days before, and now was standing off in a haggle 

 about terms. 



On inquiring who the lau'd was, I thought he was an old schoolfellow, 

 and on inquiring further of old Donald I found that I was not 

 mistaken. Jock Grant and I had been at the Hev. Spanker Bottles' 

 academy some fifteen or sixteen years previously. He was my junior, and 

 I licked fellows for him, and all that sort of thing ; so I resolved to look 

 him up, as I went back, for I passed his place on my journey, and I 

 knew that from him I should get the straight tip if I needed it, for a 

 more free and open lad than Jock wasn't extant, and proprietorship 

 couldn't have changed him so very much. 



Never was a fellow so glad to see me as Jock; I must stop a week, 

 or a month, or six months, or as long as I Uked, and, lastly, as long as 

 I could, wliich was only one night — and a glorious one we had of it. 

 As for the moor, I must not look at any other moor ; he'd tlirow in this, 

 that, and t'other rather than miss our coming his way, which he certainly 

 did, adding considerably to our sport in the result, though the moor, as 

 moors went, was quite worth the money already. 



I need not say that we had the refusal to the exclusion of anyone 

 else, and within a week Charley was Jock's tenant; and satisfactory relations 



