FEBRUARY 61 



the population. Now Norsemen and Saxons may be 

 traced to a common Germanic stock, but the first 

 seem to have monopolised William of Wykeham's 

 adage, ' Manners makyth man,' and succeed in making 

 intercourse exceedingly agreeable all round. Norse 

 blood, with an infusion of Celtic, produces a race pro- 

 bably of superior social amenity to any other. This 

 adds immensely to the zest of field-sports in penulti- 

 mate Thule, especially to that of early salmon fishing, 

 which involves the spending of long hours by the water- 

 side in solitude, save for the presence of the attendant 

 gillie. 



Now, there be gillies and gillies. An Irishman in 

 that capacity is sure to be amusing, a Highlander 

 generally sympathetic; both perhaps succeed in con- 

 cealing their total disregard of veracity. As for the 

 Lowland Scot, you may place implicit reliance on the 

 few observations he emits, but his incorrigible dourness 

 has a depressing effect. It is the Norse Highlander 

 of Caithness who alone fulfils the part to perfection, 

 putting himself in harmony with all his employer's 

 moods, ready to discuss politics, agriculture, literature, 

 or what not, yet thoroughly sound and true in all 

 pertaining to his craft. 



Great is the joy to stand with such a man on the 

 familiar marge ; the well-known landscape lies around 

 weather-wan grass brown, stunted heather dark, 

 blotchy ploughed land stretching away without a tree, 

 hardly a superfluous bush to break the monotony of it, 

 to the low upland horizon of that purple blue peculiar 



