John White, the Gamekeeper. 13 



notice in high places, John did not lose his head, and 

 when a celebrated English feeder put a chaffing 

 question to him as to his ox's dietary, he had his 

 guard up in an instant, and wouldn't allow that it 

 ever ate anything but " Heather bloom ! heather 

 bloom /" He seemed very well, but when he was 

 met at the station on his return, he told his fellow 

 servant, as if with a sort of sad prescience, that he 

 had now won all he could win, and that he didn't 

 care whether he ever saw the South again. Then 

 came two quiet days to recruit him after his journey, 

 and some long, two-handed cracks with his master 

 about the black he had left behind him, and then to 

 work once more in his nice, cheerful way among the 

 prize beasts for '68, Still his treacherous complaint 

 knew of no lengthened compromise. Another short 

 week and his labour was done, and this true- 

 hearted servant was borne up the valley to his 

 grave. 



We have also lost our honest, downright friend of 

 many years standing, John White, or " Hawthorne." 

 No more each August shall we hail his forecast of the 

 grouse on the Grampians, so often prefaced by the 

 lines which told of the muircock's crow, the eagle's 

 haunt in the glen, the sweet moss where the roe deer 

 browse, and all the other delights of his heart, and 

 ending up with an exhortation to his brother sports- 

 men to " on wi' the tartan, and off wi' me ride." He 

 was head-keeper to the Earl of Mansfield, in whose 

 service he had been for nineteen years. His com- 

 mand extended over the Lowland shootings round 

 Scone and Lynedoch — one on the banks of the Tay, 

 and the other of the Almond. Lynedoch, which is 

 some six miles out of Perth, is a lovely wild spot, and 

 he lived in the heart of it, not much more than a 

 hundred yards from the now ruined cottage where 

 the venerable General Lynedoch, as long as his eye- 

 sight lasted, spent three months of his summer. 



