6 THE KEEPER'S BOOK 



marked distinctions between Highlander and Low- 

 lander, it would be idle to shoot their characters into 

 separate pigeonholes. We have in our mind many 

 Highland keepers, who combined keen sporting 

 instincts and capacities with indomitable energy and 

 perseverance in the pursuit of their more irksome 

 duties ; and we also recall many Lowlanders and 

 English shire keepers who were preternaturally lazy. 



It is to be regretted that the qualities of charm and 

 laziness so often go together. Some of the most 

 interesting keepers we have known have been the 

 most indolent. We remember one particular keeper 

 in Perthshire, whose knowledge of sport and whose 

 facility for narrative made of him a fascinating com- 

 panion in the chase, yet who invariably neglected such 

 duties as the killing of vermin, the digging out of 

 springs, the proper burning of heather, and the hundred 

 little duties for which more especially he was paid. Of 

 course he knew all about the rights and wrongs of these 

 matters, but, in dealing with these questions, he spoke 

 in the vaguest generalities, and rapidly turned the con- 

 versation to some famous day on the hill when late in 

 the season " the Captain," his master, killed forty brace 

 to his own gun, or to a story of some record stalk in 

 the forests of Ross-shire or Aberdeenshire. There was 

 not an experience of our own that he could not cap 

 with a story of brilliant shooting on his old master's 

 part, and equally skilful manoeuvring on his own, and 

 his exploits were all told with such a power of pictur- 



