THE RED GROUSE
When he woke to being, and left the warm shelter of his mother’s feathers to take a look at the world around him, the sun was smiling upon the purple heather, and a light wind was stirring the leaves of birch and mountain-ash in the plantation below. He was no more than a tiny ball of yellow fluff with some dark-brown marks on back and sides, and a chestnut patch on his head, and there were eight brothers and sisters exactly like each other, waiting for him by the side of the heather tuft under which his mother had been hatching her eggs.
His father sat on another tuft a few yards away, spreading his plumage in the sunlight, and the little grouse thought he was fortunate in having such a handsome parent. The head, neck, breast and sides of Father Grouse were of a very bright chestnut colour, with black lines across, his lower feathers were darker, but tipped with white, to show his pure Highland breeding.
“Kok-kok,” said Father Grouse. “What a fine family I have to be sure. The stupid gamekeeper put his foot in our first nest and we had to make another one. So you are all very late. June is already here, the other birds on the moor can fly by now. Kok-kok.”
Then he and his wife broke off the tiny fresh tops of the heather, and the little bird, having been fed with his brothers and sisters, ran about in the sun till it went down, and then crept back to the nest where the shells of broken eggs had been lying, pale cream shells covered with heavy blotches of red. The little grouse, warm under his mother’s feathers and above the moss that lined the nest, slept quite happily, dreaming of the days when he would be able to fly over the moor. He woke with a start hearing his father crying:—
“Who goes there? Who goes there? my sword, my sword.”
“Don’t be frightened,” said Mother Grouse reassuringly, as the little ones nestle closer to her, “he says that every morning.”
The newcomer soon became accustomed to be called at daybreak by this startling cry, and he learned as soon to hide from the buzzard, the peregrine falcon and the carrion crows that, between them, eventually managed to secure all his brothers, because they would not listen to their father’s warning. Mrs. Grouse had decided at last that the last big egg, which was as broad at one end as at the other, held no son or daughter, and as soon as she had made up her mind about that she put on her summer dress; it was buff-coloured and marked with irregular bars of black. When the family had admired it they flew together across the heather. Father Grouse had no summer dress; he did not change his costume before autumn.
The family kept to the moor, where they met many very pleasant relatives with children quite grown up, so much like their mothers that it was hard to tell the difference, and while they were together Father Grouse gave his only son a lot of useful information.
“We keep to the heather,” he said. “It is our own. On the hills beyond,” and he pointed to the mountain behind the moor, “you find our cousins, the ptarmigan. In the plantation below the hills where there are birch, hazel, ash and juniper trees and where the roebuck hides in the ferns, you have another cousin, the blackcock. He feeds with us sometimes. We have not much to do with either of them, though we are not unfriendly. Kok-kok.”
It was a very fine summer, the heather was fresh and sweet to eat, and very warm to lie on. The little grouse soon lost the yellow down that had covered him, and his plumage became very much like his mother’s. The family would fly about in a group, father and mother leading, and they often went off the heather to eat the grass and early berries.
“I have lived more than one whole year,” said Father Grouse, “but I was born in a very bad season. The heather was bitten by the frost, the rain was unceasing, we could not get enough food, and it was terribly cold on the wet ground. Hundreds died—but lie down, somebody is coming.”
The family crouched low in the heather and saw the landlord’s factor walking up the hill-side with a stout gentleman who wore an unbecoming coat and a waistcoat with a heavy watch chain across it. The stout gentleman passed a handkerchief across his forehead. “It is a fine view,” he gasped, “and what are the limits of the bag?”
“Eight hundred brace of grouse may be shot and forty stags but the laird is not a hard man and might make it a thousand brace and fifty stags,” said the factor, who had forgotten how to blush.
“Now,” whispered Father Grouse, and uttering a challenge, he rose within three yards of the stout gentleman, closely followed by wife and family.
“You see,” said the factor, “the moor is packed with birds, you can almost walk over them.”
“Why did you show yourself like that, my dear?” said Mother Grouse, when they had settled after a long easy flight.
“Ah,” replied her husband, “you leave me to attend to my own business. I like to see men like that on the moor, they do no harm. It is the young, slender men who are never tired and are always shooting that I object to. You can’t get away from them, Kok-kok.”
“Did you hear the factor,” continued Father Grouse, after as near an approach to a chuckle as a red grouse can achieve. “He said the bag was limited to eight hundred brace, though the laird might make the limit up to a thousand. Now there are not two hundred and fifty brace on the moor. As for the stags, fancy a man like that trying to stalk them; well, let us go and eat some heather-tops—such talk makes me feel weak.”
They were glorious days that led to the middle of August. The young grouse was becoming quite big; he could take long flights without fatigue, could accomplish a small call, was an adept at finding good food and soft sleeping places, and he never allowed his attentions to stray from his feathered enemies.
He had some narrow escapes; on one occasion the peregrine falcon struck down one of his sisters as she was flying by his side; on another the great Golden Eagle, coming from his eyrie on the mountain top, was circling over him, but suddenly saw a young deer calf on a rock not far away. The rock looked over the bare hill-side, and the eagle, lighting on the poor calf’s back, buffeted its face so heavily with his wings that it fell off the rock and, tumbling down, was killed on the hill-side. The Golden Eagle made his meal, the fox and the carrion crow took what was left. It was a sad sight, and the Golden Eagle was more unpopular than ever on the moor and in the forest.
The young grouse made the acquaintance of the biggest deer on the hill, a king of stags, with brow, bay and tray antlers, who explained that he was a stag royal. This acquaintance was made one afternoon in early August when the grouse family were feeding on some succulent grasses by the side of the burn where the stag came to drink.
“I am more than pleased to meet you again,” said the stag. “I wish you and your family as sure an escape from the shot gun as I hope to get from the rifle.” So saying he trotted off, and Father Grouse spread his feathers just as though he had been a blackcock in a juniper tree, and challenged as loudly as he could.
“Last September,” he said, turning to his wondering son, “after my parents had met with misfortune passing over the butts, I found myself on some high ground near the big corrie. The royal stag you saw just now was resting there with his family, and he had been seen by the stalker. I was sitting on a heather tuft thinking that now I had lost my parents I should have to join the grouse pack, when I saw the stalker and the man who shoots the stags, crawling along the ground in my direction. They wanted to get behind the stag and shoot him as he sat head to wind.
“I can see them now—the stalker very cool, and the shooter very tired. As I looked I thought I recognised him as the man who had shot my parents. I did not hesitate, but rose up when they were almost near enough to touch me, flew within hearing of the stag and called out:—
“Who goes there? The gun, the gun.”
“The royal stag and all his family scattered, the stalker put down his gun and took up his whisky-flask; the man who had shot my parents used language no respectable grouse could listen to without feeling ashamed. They went to the wood for their lunch and my cousin, the grey hen, heard the stalker say he thought they had walked twelve miles after that stag. Kok-kok.”
It was good to be alive in those August days, to wake up when the sun started work, look out for food in the morning and late afternoon, and lie close through the heat of the day. The southerner had taken the shooting on lease and spent one or two days looking over the land, to the great delight of Father Grouse, who declared that no bird need suffer uneasiness on his account.
“All old men,” said Father Grouse, “would fire into a pack without hurting anything.” This was on the night of the 11th August which happened to fall on Saturday. Sunday, the 12th, brought no guns to the moor, and Father Grouse was first puzzled and then delighted. “I have it,” he said at last; “there will be no grouse shot this year, that stout man knows he will have no chance against us. He will try to shoot stags because they are bigger. Kok-kok.”
Monday, the 13th of August, found the grouse family up betimes; they fed heartily, as was their custom, and then retired to shelter from the heat. Father Grouse, Mother Grouse, three daughters and the one son, comprised the family now. Once or twice Mother Grouse stirred uneasily and said she heard men, but her husband remonstrated with her.
“You are very nervous, my dear,” he said, “haven’t I told you there will be no shooting this year? They will be cutting the corn in the lower fields soon, and we’ll go down there to feed on the stooks. You want a change of diet to strengthen your nerves. I know well enough you have no occasion for uneasiness.”
“It’s no good starting too early,” the head keeper had said at the lodge on the previous evening, “give the birds time to eat and time to settle down, and then you’ll do all right.”
And on the morning of the 13th he had declared that the breeze was just what was wanted, and that everything pointed to a successful day. The party, four guns and two keepers, with retrievers, had gone steadily from the low ground where the lodge stood, across the fresh-cut fields, over the hill-side and on to the moor. The heather was short and pointers were not used on it.
The old gentleman who took the moor did not shoot, but his three sons and nephew were first-class shots. While Father Grouse was saying his last words, he had seen them, and had realised that the men with the guns were young and sturdy, just the sort he had learned to fear. In that trying moment he realised how he had deceived himself and family, and how the gunners, by coming up the wind, had made it impossible for him to scent them in time.
“Rise quickly with me,” he whispered bravely to the Mother Grouse, “we’ll go for a safer place, my dear, and you follow us,” he added to his children. With these words he rose, and the others followed so quickly that the six birds seemed to take wing together.
“Bang, bang, bang, bang,” said the guns, and Father and Mother Grouse sank down into the heather that had been their home so long, with never a feather of their fine plumage ruffled. They were shot dead so cleanly that they knew no pain, and with them two of their children fell, not to die so easily. The white spot at the base of the beak of Father Grouse had a bright drop of blood on it, Mother Grouse did not even show as much.
“Mark down the others,” cried the man who had shot the parent birds, and opened the season with a successful “right and left”.
“Isn’t worth while,” said his friend who had shot one of the younger birds, “they are only cheepers.”
Then the birds being retrieved, the party continued to shoot its way over the moor, meeting with fair success, for the wind kept the birds from hearing the approach, and they had fed so well during the fine weather that they were not at all wild. Twenty odd brace had gone to the bag by two o’clock.
The young cock grouse never knew how he got away, nor what became of his family. He heard the guns cracking at the back of him, the hissing of shot through the air, and he flew wildly until he felt he had reached safety, then sank down into the heather, not daring to stir. He heard the guns again; once the remnant of a broken covey passed over the heather where he crouched, but he did not move until feeding-time came, and then, after a brief meal, returned to shelter.
For the next two weeks the moor was quite unsafe, the four guns sounded every morning and afternoon; on one or another of the five beats the birds fell in all directions. One day the guns came upon the young grouse suddenly, when he had no idea of their proximity and, crouched in the heather, he remained quite still. It was a hot day, no breath of air stirred the leaves; the ground was hard as iron and there was no scent. A dog passed within a yard of him without betraying his presence; the gunners moved away to the right; he was safe.
He met single birds on the moor, and all told the same doleful tale of disaster, and when with the last day of the month the weather changed and the wind rose, word passed from bird to bird that it was time to pack. So he joined one or two others and they joined some more, and when they were fifty strong they joined another band as large, and their addition went on until the pack numbered hundreds if not thousands. This was not on the old moor where he had been born, but on another one not far away, where the guns had only stayed for a day or two before going on to the high forest lands some mile or more away in pursuit of the stags. The young grouse and his companions had become very keen of sight and hearing; they were alarmed by the least sound, and gunners who tried to walk after them never arrived within firing distance.
One afternoon when the pack was feeding, the young grouse came upon his friend the royal stag by the side of the burn that ran through the heart of the heather. The great beast had been wounded by an ill-aimed bullet and had found his way to the water alone, for his hinds had scattered. He lay crouched amid the moss and water grasses.
“I have been here for two days,” he said to the grouse, “and if I’m left alone for two more I’ll be healed of my wounds and I’ll baffle the stalkers yet. They nearly tracked me, but had no dog, or I must have fought for it.”
“We’re staying here awhile,” said the grouse, “and I’ll do what I can for you in the way of warning.”
The red grouse fed and rested in that quarter for several days, and the stag went back to the forest on the third evening. “I am well enough to go to sanctuary now,” he said, “to the wood in the centre of the forest where the stalkers may not follow us. Good-bye, good luck, take care of the butts.” So saying, he trotted off bravely, before the young grouse could ask what the butts might be.
He was not left long in doubt. On the morning following the stag’s departure, he and his companions were alarmed to see a body of men armed with white flags approaching from the distance. With one accord the birds rose and wenten massein the direction indicated by the wind, right over some little banks of turf they had seen many times before on the moor. There were several of these banks on various moors, they were in a line, one being seventy yards or more from the other and were quite harmless as a rule.
This morning, however, as the birds passed over, the cry of the guns was heard, shot after shot was fired, bird after bird fell, for every little enclosure held one or two men. Some birds tried swerving, but it only carried them from one earth to another; it was a frightful experience and one that was destined to be repeated, for the birds followed the wind whenever they fled from the beaters and were caught again and again.
If the walkers had shot their tens, the drivers secured their hundreds in the next week or two, until the weather changed again for the worse and the packs took to a wilder and higher flight than they had ever attempted before. Then the gunners went off the moors and returned to the lower lands to shoot partridges.
To his last day the young grouse never knew how he survived the driving. The constant alarms, the headlong flights through the air, the hiss of the expanding shot that struck down near neighbours, these experiences filled him with a strange unreasoning fear, and he was not to escape scot free, for a couple of stray pellets cut off two of the toes of his left leg and another skinned the feathers above the left eye so that they never grew again.
On one occasion in his mad flight from the moor, he would have been killed against the telegraph wires of the Highland Railway, had not the singing of the “protectors” warned him just in time to dive below the wires. He felt little pain and inconvenience from his wounds and soon learned to go on short allowance of toes, but his fear increased until the least sound sent him into flight. Long after the moor had ceased to echo with the sound of guns, he trembled at every noise. The stags roared in the forest, and he fled in fear; a bird of prey screamed in the air—he dashed off again.
RED GROUSE [Photo by C. Reid]
RED GROUSE [Photo by C. Reid]
RED GROUSE [Photo by C. Reid]
“Have no more fear,” said the royal stag one day in later October, “the guns have gone for the year, the shooting season is over and I go about the forest as I like. Until my horns have fallen and grown again they will not return.”
This assurance comforted the grouse and he changed his clothes for a black and buff combination that yielded in a little while to the splendid chestnut with white tipped lower feathers that he remembered his father wearing. He still travelled with the pack, but they ate less heather than they had eaten before, and depended more upon late autumn berries, grass and corn left on unploughed fields. He grew strong and indifferent to the storms that swept the moors and made the forest bare.
No sportsman came near, and at the end of December the pack separated, and our friend was left so near to his own moor that he lighted on it, and there he met a young lady grouse in her charming winter gown with its bars of red and buff and spots at the tips of the feathers. He asked her if she would fly with him, explaining that he had, he feared, lost his family and friends. She feared that hers was a similar plight and said she would be glad of a protector. So they went out together and found the scattered remains of their friends, and for two or three months enjoyed a pleasant courtship.
Then when the stale winter heather was about to yield to a new crop, one bird brought news of a district where all the old growth had been burnt by the proprietors of the land a few years earlier and the new shoots were plentiful and sweet. The grouse and his lady flew to that spot, and found a little unoccupied hollow under a heather tuft. He helped her to line it with grass and moss, and she filled it with ten eggs. It was now the end of March, and during the first part of April he stood on sentry duty a little way from the nest, and uttered his war cry in Gaelic as his father had done before him. Happily the weather was fine once more and ten little babies were his before April turned to May. He was a proud grouse on the day when the last bird had come from its shell.
Other birds had been carelessly content to nest in the old uneatable heather, or on parts of the moorland where the ground was damp and undrained; the mortality among them had been very great, for they caught pneumonia and other troubles which are peculiar to the grouse. But this grouse flourished, and so did his wife and family, and by rare good luck no birds of prey secured the little ones; the food supply did not fail, and the weather was never cold enough to kill the children in days when their down had not changed to feathers.
By this time all remembrance of the autumn had passed from the grouse and his wife. It was no more to them than a dream. They thought of nothing but love and domesticity. Spring, which had restored all its beauty to the Highland country, had effaced recollection of autumn and winter and all the woes they bore. Summer deepened the remembrance of the spring and the joy of life; as Mrs. Grouse remarked to her husband, there was not a pair on the moors that led a finer covey of little ones.
June passed in days that seemed to be twenty hours long, there was no night—only a prolonged twilight; July was so fine that the burns dwindled down to little threads, and the farmers on the lowlands were crying for the water of which in nine years out of ten they had too much. August found the heather full of fragrance and the grouse forward, and strong on the wing. “They are exactly like you, my dear,” said Father Grouse to his wife, who had put on her summer dress with the irregular black bars across buff feathers, as they skimmed over the heather side by side. The parent birds were like her, very fat and very lazy, for the heather-tops had been young and plentiful in their part and they had rather overeaten themselves.
“That was a fine covey,” said the first gun to his neighbour at ten o’clock on the morning of the 12th. “A dozen in all, and we got six. How odd; last year you bagged the leader with your first shot just as you’ve done now. What is it, Donald? Yes, that’s odd, this old cock bird must have been hit twice last season. Two toes gone from left leg and mark of shot above left eye. Well, put them in. If we go on like this we will have a good bag.”