14 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



Every kind of rare and lovely British fern flourished 

 in these congenial surroundings, from the tall Osmunda 

 Regalis to the tiny film fern, of which both varieties, 

 Wilson's and the Tunbridge, abounded. I fancy that 

 Sir John was almost a pioneer in the use of the tele- 

 phone and the electric light in a private residence. 

 The higher part of the river, above a fall no salmon 

 could negotiate, cuts its way through a deep inac- 

 cessible gorge, crossed and recrossed by threadlike 

 iron bridges, which carry the path through the most 

 magnificent scenery commanding lovely views of 

 mountain, torrent, and rapid. The eagle floated on 

 noiseless wing round the mountain peaks, and the 

 osprey, which nested on the shores of Loch Luichart, 

 in the adjoining forest of Lady Ashburton, might 

 frequently be seen in the neighbourhood of the house. 



The road from Garve, the nearest station, ran 

 through deer forest for nearly twenty miles ; rather 

 a long drive when I first traversed it, but nothing in 

 these days of motors. The journey was enlivened by 

 frequent visions of stag and hind upon the sky-line, 

 earnest of the sport that awaited the traveller at his 

 journey's end. It was at Braemore that I had the 

 never to be forgotten thrill of bagging my first stag, 

 and many much more important persons artists, 

 statesmen, and even bishops and archbishops were 

 beguiled there into undertaking their maiden stalk. 

 I suppose the big-game book is still at Inverbroom, 

 in which it was more than once my fate to read my 

 name, coupled with the melancholy entry : " Missed 

 a stag." 



I paid my first visit to this terrestrial paradise 

 somewhere towards the end of the seventies, but not 



