PLEASANT PLACES 3 



culpable, because it was not only a fraud upon the 

 revenue, but a breach of the law made for the protec- 

 tion and preservation of game, and rigidly enforced 

 against poachers of humbler origin. This particular 

 injunction we always obeyed, and I think we at least 

 observed the spirit of his other instructions, to which 

 I ascribe some measure of my good fortune in never 

 having been present at a serious shooting accident. I 

 still remember the horror I felt when I went to pick 

 up what I supposed to be a rabbit and found that I 

 had massacred a hen pheasant. I trembled lest I 

 should be haled before the magistrate and fined, and 

 was quite delighted when my father instead of playing 

 Brutus merely drew the mild and salutary lesson that 

 it would be well in future for me to make quite certain 

 what I was aiming at before I pulled the trigger. 



Happy hunting-grounds ! Let me name a few of 

 the earliest, with heart-felt gratitude to the generous 

 hosts who made me welcome to their Northern homes. 

 What days and nights I spent at Murthly Castle, 

 where the best and kindest of friends, Mrs. Graham, 

 found sport by day, and inexhaustible merriment by 

 night, for an enchanted circle of privileged guests. It 

 seemed as if the conjuror's magic bottle from which 

 each could taste the drink which pleased him best, 

 found its counterpart here, where every sportsman 

 could choose and enjoy at will his favourite pursuit. 

 Below the picturesque old castle and the gaunt un- 

 finished modern shell which stood beside it, the wind- 

 ing Tay flowed through beautiful hills fringed with 

 silvery birch and dark pine ; and just above Dunkeld, 

 Birnam protested that all its wood had not marched 

 to Dunsinane. 



