Decorative line.
The proprietor, to our very great surprise and astonishment, intimated to us and to the tenants of the arable farms on the Fife estates, that, on the expiration of the current sporting leases, they should have the right to kill ground game on their arable farms, how and when they liked.
This was a knock down blow. I am inclined to think that the factor had an inkling of it when he pressed us to renew; that he wanted to make his sporting leases safe, so that they should not be affected by it.
There were forty tenants in Glenmarkie who would have the right to shoot, and, naturally, I did not see my way to preserve game on the low ground in the teeth of that, so, with great reluctance, we told our good factor that we should have to go.
He offered considerable reduction in rent—anything to induce us to stop, except rescinding the ground game fad, and that he could not do.
The only reason that could have suggested such action on the part of the proprietor must have been political, probably to outbid M'Combie, the Radical candidate for Aberdeenshire; but so it was, and there was no way of getting over it.
The stock of grouse upon the ground was very large, and the late Mr. O. joined us in the grouse time, and after the first two days he and Fred shot together.
In the first two days shooting together Fred and I made over the same dogs over one hundred brace a-day. The total bag in the two days was two hundred and ten brace of grouse, and some sundries; and I have but little doubt that, if I had been bent on a swagger bag, shooting by myself, commencing at 8 a.m. in place of 11 a.m., I could have made a hundred brace in one day to my own gun.
After that I managed the birds pretty well by myself, and when they became skittish, by starting about from 12 to 1 o'clock, and hunting the wild ground into good sitting ground, taking time for lunch, and beginning to work the birds about 3 to 4 o'clock, I made pretty shooting.
I had to work the dog myself, the gillie keeping down in the heather out of sight.
Old Rap was gone, I hope to where good dogs go, for he deserved it if dogs can deserve it.
His two sons, Duke and Prince, did my work. Duke was a nice-mannered, tractable, gentle beast, but Prince was a rank tartar.
So soon as you loosed him from the couples, he would do some rank trick, get on the foot of a hare, or what not; then come in to the whip, get it hot, wag his tail, and then for some time go to work with a skill and courage far beyond Duke, then again to the whip, and so he went on to the end of his days.
One afternoon I had a laughable sell—the laugh was against me, though. My chums were not going out, so I drove my birds carefully into sitting ground, that was principally on what was their beat.
I got a fine lot of birds into good ground, and at 3 p.m. rose up from lunch to make what I knew would be a good afternoon's work, rather out of the common.
As I got up, who should I see but David and the two chums coming round the shoulder of the hill, into the ground I had carefully filled with birds. They had point after point, and made an unexpectedly fine afternoon's shooting, about twenty-five brace of birds. They had not the slightest notion how it came about. I said nothing, not I, as I had rather stretched a point by driving into their beat, but David knew that something had been done to get them this good shooting, and worked it out of my gillie after we got home, and a pretty laugh there was, and no thanks.
Of course I got no shooting that afternoon; perhaps a brace or two before lunch, and a brace or two after.
It was a charming season; exceptionally nice weather, no gales, plenty of sun, and just enough rain to keep things pleasant and scent good.
My own bag was three hundred and ninety-one and a-half brace, and one hundred and fourteen brace of partridges in October, besides a lot of brown hares, plover, snipe, &c.
Altogether we had a good way over six hundred brace, and a special good time with the low ground in October.
The snipe shooting was far better in the earlier years of our lease. It was, indeed, very good, especially in one swamp of a few acres, that was too soft for cattle to tread it, and there the snipe bred in large quantities; but an enterprising farmer came along with some large pipe drains, and settled the snipe. It was a sad pity, but you cannot hammer into proprietors that the value of the snipe shooting far exceeds the couple of pounds extra value of grazing caused by draining, in fact, that snipe shooting would with some men be the turning point of whether they took the shooting or not.
It was getting time to look about me for another shooting, and, making enquiries, I had the offer of a celebrated moor not far away, up in Strathspey.
The moor was noted for swagger bags on the first few days, so I sent David to inspect and report, which he did faithfully and fully. It was a grand place, and the rent moderate.
He was given every information, and shown the game books with a record of twenty-five years (that takes us back in the records of disease for nearly half-a-century). On the average, it showed but three good seasons out of seven.
I was very much surprised, and I did not feel inclined to face that, but many to whom money is no object, and who can shoot elsewhere as well, would say, "Yes, we will pay seven years' rent and expenses for three years of extraordinary sport in the three good seasons." It ended in my declining it.
Some two or three years previously I had been in Caithness for a fortnight's salmon fishing at the end of February, on the Thurso. If I remember rightly, Mr. R. L. Price had given me his rod on the river for that time.
Braal Castle.Braal Castle.
Braal Castle.
Then, at Braal Castle I made the acquaintance of William Dunbar, an acquaintance that lasted so long as Dunbar lived, and still continues with his widow, and his daughter, Mrs. Sutherland.
Dunbar was a very remarkable man in his way. He made his living by taking shootings and fishings from Caithness proprietors.
Acting under his advice, the proprietor opened up the main strath, by making a road from the county road at Strathmore, past Dalnawillan and Glutt, to join the road at Braemore on to Dunbeath, and so open up access to Glutt and Dalnawillan from the south, without going round by Wick or Thurso.
He also built Strathmore and Dalnawillan lodges and keepers' houses, kennels, &c.
Dunbar leased from the proprietor the whole of the fishings and shootings from the sea to the Sutherland march, and in addition many smaller shootings in the Wick and Watton districts from other proprietors, who all knew little or nothing about sporting subjects (and, as a matter of fact, they and their factors know as little now), still less how to make them available for, and how to introduce them to, southern sportsmen. As it was, Dunbar was really a perfect godsend to the various proprietors, and to the county of Caithness generally, from the large sums of money brought into the county by his shooting and fishing friends and tenants.
The Ulbster shootings, which constituted the main strath when I first knew Dunbar, were divided as follows, or thereabouts, including about 5000 acres leased from other proprietors:—
The Thurso salmon angling was let to six rods, and the anglers lodged in the early months at Braal Castle, and later on at Strathmore Lodge.
In those days the lower beats fished well in February and March, the fish running from 8lb. to 10lb., with an occasional big one; but now in the early months they run about double the weight, few and far between, and make up almost at once for Loch More and the upper beats. The reason for the change is not far to seek.
Dunbar had a happy knack in letting shootings and fishings. He understood sport, was frank, truthful, and kept back nothing. It did not need an old hand to read between the lines of his statements.
He was pretty keen in making his bargains, but once made he did his best to make things comfortable for his clients. He went for a connection, and he made one. There was not a grain of meanness or littleness in his composition; whether in the bond or not he did the fair thing. He knew how to deal with gentlemen, and men felt safe in his hands, and voids in his shootings and fishings were rare.
He was popular in Caithness with all classes.
Fred elected not to continue grouse shooting, and our pleasant partnership came to an end, and I had to decide what I would do.
When in Caithness, I had picked up all the information I could gather as to Caithness moors.
In all ways they were the very opposite to Glenmarkie. Grouse sat well for quite a month, rather more on the hill moors, and rather less on the low moors, and nowhere did they pack, except in heavy snowstorms when the ground was all white, and they made away to the lower grounds for food.
There was nothing like the quantity of grouse that I had at Glenmarkie, but the ranges were larger—wide ranging dogs and good walking imperative; but when dogs got birds they sat well.
There was also a considerable quantity of wild fowl, wild geese, ducks, and blue hares; very few on Glenmarkie. No low ground shooting, in fact, no arable on the hill moors.
The heather was short and stunted, with stretches of deer grass and flows; in fact, no good heather on the hill moors. Excepting on the burn banks and dry knolls, the ground was mostly peat bog, too soft to carry a pannier pony, and the birds had to be carried in panniers on gillies' backs.
The trout fishing in the upper streams and burns of the Thurso that fed Loch More was pretty good. The trout were plentiful but small, running about four to the pound, but they came quick and lively. The loch fishing was not much account; perhaps I should except one loch, that yielded heavy trout of fine quality, but very shy.
Glenmarkie was a Christian-like place, but the principal moors of Caithness were a howling wilderness, not a tree and scarcely a shrub; but it was a wilderness of weird beauty in changing lights. The outlook from the top of Ben Alasky on a wild stormy day, with changing sunlight and storms, over the loch bespattered land, backed up by the cliffs of Orkney, was one of the things to see and to remember.
To me this wild and weird land has great charms.
Well, I wrote to Dunbar in the early summer to say that my lease was expiring, and that I wanted a shooting for 1872, and on a long lease.
He offered me one or two small ones in the Watton and Wick districts, but I told him that I must have Glutt, Dalnawillan, or Strathmore. He replied that all were let on lease, and could not be had.
But in September he wrote again, saying that his tenant Col. C., from failing health, desired probably to relinquish the lease of Dalnawillan and Chullacan, 18,000 and 6000 acres respectively, and that they could be had jointly or separately at £400 and £160, for the unexpired term of the Colonel's lease, of which there was nine years then to run.
I sent Black down to inspect and report.
It culminated as Dunbar had foreshadowed, and at the latter end of October I went straight from Glenmarkie to Dalnawillan.
The railway was then open to Helmsdale, and from there I travelled by mail coach as far as Dunbeath, a lovely drive past Berriedale, the property of the Duke of Portland, but being night I could see but little of it on that occasion.
I slept at Dunbeath, and posted over next morning, 16 miles, the whole distance across the moorland, to Dalnawillan.
Angus Mackay, the Colonel's gillie, met me at the march with a dog, and, getting the gun out of the case, I shot up to the lodge.
The day was warm and sunny, and I was amazed and puzzled; I saw no birds. At Glenmarkie they would have rolled up over the sky line; but birds sat to the dog, and I killed three and a half brace. Three days before, at Glenmarkie, being the last day that I should shoot, I tried to get a few grouse, my endeavours resulting in one bird, but plenty of packs rising before me.
The next day was showery and gusty, and the birds did not sit well, but at Glenmarkie they would have rolled up in packs.
I spent two nights at the lodge with the Colonel's brother, who came over to meet me, and next morning was away to Thurso to meet the Colonel and Dunbar.
It was agreed that the lease should be assigned. I suggested a new lease from Dunbar, and that he should make it the full ten years.
"Take it to the end of my lease, seventeen years, if you like," says Dunbar, to which I assented; so it was settled that I should take the 24,000 acres of Dalnawillan, and Chullacan, and Backlas, at the rent of £560, proprietor paying all rates and taxes, and I paying my keeper and all other expenses.
This included a joint right of trout fishing on Dalnawillan, Strathmore, and Glutt, and salmon fishing, after June 1.
When I returned to England my shooting friends told me that I was crazy to take shooting in such an out-of-the-way, wild country, and tie myself up for such a term of years. I felt I had done right; I meant grouse shooting and fishing, and that, as railways had crept up, and were creeping up, that shootings were more likely to improve than get worse, in case of some unforeseen event occurring that should cause me to cease to shoot.
Black had made every inquiry as to disease. Dunbar told me plump that five years before they had had disease, but it was a mild attack, and did not stop shooting. As, however, the moor had not carried a good head of grouse until the year I took it, I expect that the tenants shot away, killing down the breeding stock that should have been nursed. It was admitted that the moors on the south and east had been badly hit with disease.
I took the place with my eyes open, and was prepared to take the fat with the lean, but I candidly confess that I had more lean than I expected or liked.
I looked for disease in 1874, but it came sooner.
Decorative line.
Of course, the moor was larger than I needed for my own personal use, and according to the fashion of the time I proposed to get others to join me, so I looked out for a couple of guns to share expenses.
It was proposed that the moor should be shot in three parties of one gun each. There was no difficulty in those days in getting guns to join, but it is very difficult now. I take it, that before the passing of the Ground Game Act there was more English shooting of a moderate character, and, so to speak, men were educated to shoot, and naturally were desirous of trying their hands on grouse; besides, the shooting squires are not so well to do throughout the country as they were before the depression in land.
I advertised in theFieldon a Saturday, and before Monday was over a gentleman in Berkshire had been straight to my place in Shropshire and arranged for one gun, and the other was fixed before the end of the week. Very nice, cheery, gentlemenly men they both were. Mr. C. and Mr. D. were my colleagues.
My wife, my sister-in-law, and the children, accompanied us in August; we had a sleeping saloon as far as Helmsdale, the then terminus of Northern Railways.
That night we stopped at Ross's Hotel. Helmsdale was the only entrance by road into Caithness, and Ross's the only hotel, so the capacity of Ross's rooms was the gauge of the traffic. The Countess of Caithness had our rooms the night before, and they were booked for somebody else the night after us.
The next day Ross posted us in achar-a-bancthe thirty-two miles to Dalnawillan, stopping to lunch and bait horses at Dunbeath; the luggage had gone on before in two carts.
The drive to Dunbeath was lovely over the Ord and past Berriedale, the Duke of Portland's place.
At Dunbeath after lunch the party walked down to the sea to look at the rocks and fishing boats, and we all enjoyed it thoroughly; after this break there was a sixteen mile drive across the moorland, passing Braemore and Glutt Lodges on the left.
There being no railway we made arrangements with the Glutt party, and engaged with a carrier to bring letters, supplies, &c., from Dunbeath and take back game bags, empties, &c., the following day. We were quite as well off, in fact, better than if we had been fidgetted with railway, post-office, and telegraph at our elbow.
Things went well with us, the shooting was excellent, the Chullacan and Backlas beats were especially full of birds that season. At Chullacan was a very primitive farmhouse with a small cooking place, and a room for us to serve as sitting-room and bedroom. The farmer's room was at the other end of the house, and in his case the smoke found its way through the hole in the roof. At this place we lodged twice for two nights, each time when we shot the beats on that side. We were pretty cramped, making up three small beds at night; the morning bath we took by standing outside the house in a state of nature while the gillies douched us with pails of cold spring water.
The first time that we went over on the three days shooting, I made forty-two, forty, and forty-five brace to my own shoulder, and on our return we enjoyed the comfort of a day's lazy rest amongst the comforts of Dalnawillan Lodge. We were all very happy, my two chums in raptures, and insisting on engaging their guns for the next season.
Man proposes, God disposes.
The birds were healthy in a way when we left, but did not look well in plumage. It had been a wet draggly summer, and that partly accounted for it; but before leaving we saw a few very seedy birds on our Dunbeath march.
Dunbar had been very busy all the season for the Duke of Sutherland.
At that time the shootings and fishings of the Helmsdale Strath were divided into three great lumps of ground:
I cannot be precise about the extent, but that was about it.
Mr. Akroyd's, in Strath Naver, was almost unlimited, and included nearly all the salmon fishing of the Naver.
The Duke was disturbed in his mind, or somebody else was, and, Dunbar being the only man who really knew anything about the management of shootings and fishings, the Duke sent for him and engaged his services to report on the whole matter of the Sutherland shootings and fishings for the handsome fee of £1000, and well earned too, as he was the only man that could do it.
Acting under his advice the Duke divided the Helmsdale Strath into six shootings, with six salmon rods on the river, one rod to each shooting at £50 for those who chose to take them, and so the thing remains to this day, but with rents increased and half the ground taken away, the then existing tenants were somewhat indignant, but there was nothing much to grumble about.
Mr. Hadwen, who lived upon his place, being very little away, and also farmed the sheep, had built himself a good house on a yearly tenancy, went to see the Duke and the factor, Mr. Peacock, and they had a meeting about it.
"Your grace, I have been your tenant now for nearly twenty years, never dreaming that I should be disturbed in any way! you now take away half the shooting and increase the rent, and that after I have spent 2000l.in building a good house on your land."
"Is that so, Peacock?" says the Duke.
"Yes, your grace, it is so."
"Then pay him for his house, and then we start fair," says the Duke.
Decorative line.
The accounts in the early spring were very cheering. On the 1st of April Black wrote to congratulate us on excellent prospects, not a bad bird had he seen since we left in September. There was a grand breeding stock, and he anticipated splendid shooting.
But it was not to be. On the 15th he writes reporting birds looking badly diseased, and on the 30th writes again that a third of the birds were dead.
It was sickening news, but there was hope yet, as a fair breeding stock was left, and the disease appeared to have spent itself, the birds nesting fairly well.
At the beginning of July disease again broke out, and with greater virulence, young and old birds falling before it; but David begged us to come, of course, in August and shoot down all we could, and so sweeten the ground for those that remained by stamping out all that was possible.
Disease prevailed over nearly all Scotland; amongst others, Glenmarkie was very bad. We did not put any birds on the table, and I sent none to my friends. What few good-looking birds there were went to London, and the scarcity through the country may be imagined when I say that they made 19s.a brace.
My chums were pretty miserable, and so was I. It was a bitter disappointment. No word from D. as to taking a gun for the next season, and in about a week or ten days they both went south. However, I had to make the best of it, and, leaving my family at Dalnawillan, I went into Sutherlandshire trout fishing for a fortnight with my son Douglas, and after that we all went home.
Caithness, in those days, was the worst mapped county in Great Britain. There was a good estate map of the Ulbster estates, and the maps were pretty reliable for a few miles from the coast. Sutherland, belonging mainly to one proprietor, was well mapped.
On Dalnawillan we had a loch—a long walk across very bad ground from the lodge—that held, both in size and quality, the best trout in Sutherland and Caithness, but not plentiful; the best I ever did was eighteen fish in a day, but eight of them weighed 9-1/4lb., the largest being 1-3/4lb., and that was the largest size they ever reached, and, generally, a day's fishing meant eight or ten, with the half of them the larger size. A predecessor of mine at Dalnawillan assured me that many were got up to 3lb. and 4lb.; it is marvellous the falsehoods men will commit themselves to as to size of fish—men perfectly reliable in other ways.
The gillies talked a good deal about a loch in Sutherland, not far off our march, where the fish were nearly as large and good, and very free to rise. That sounded very nice, and needed to be experimented, and my son Douglas and I said we would take it on our way into Sutherlandshire.
In those days the lochs of Sutherlandshire were free to the angler, and for some years the Duke made it a condition in letting shootings that it should be so, and as the bulk of the lochs were difficult of access, and anglers few, there was no friction; and in the summer months there were generally two or three rod men stopping at Auchentoul Inn, on the Helmsdale Strath.
In the old Scotch fashion, the inn was part inn and part shooting lodge, and in this case Sir John Karslake's keeper kept the inn, so everything was well regulated, and caused no annoyance to Sir John or his deer. Sir John was always courteous and pleasant.
Auchentoul Inn was twelve miles cross country—and very cross country—from Dalnawillan, and we sent our portmanteau to Dunbeath, sixteen miles, thence by coach, sixteen miles, to Helmsdale, and there to wait a chance lift up the Strath, eighteen miles, to Auchentoul.
We also ordered a machine from Auchentoul to meet us at Forsinean, ten miles by a decent road.
Willie Hunter, one of our gillies, vouchsafed to pilot; he had herded sheep at this Loch Sletil, and knew all about it. The ordnance maps now tell us that it is seven and a half miles from Dalnawillan, across a very bad piece of moorland and flow.
We left Dalnawillan at 8.30 a.m.—that is, David, Douglas, and I, and Hunter as pilot; a nasty, wet, drizzling rain; encased in macintoshes, wet outside with rain and inside with perspiration, and after two and a half hours tramping and slushing over the wet moors, Willie pulled up, and in a very confused manner stated that we ought to be at the loch; "anyhow, it used to be here," said Willie.
Well! I know the loch used to be just here."Well! I know the loch used to be just here."
"Well! I know the loch used to be just here."
A council was held to determine the present location of this wandering loch, and a deviation of half a mile to the right put us upon it. Willie returned.
After a rest we donned wading stockings, and put rods together; it would be 12 o'clock by the time we began; we had some nice fish, largest 1lb., but our wading stockings would not put us into sufficiently deep water for the larger fish; but we saw enough to convince us that the loch was not overstated.
We fished away, and packed up about 6 p.m. to make our way across the moor to Forsinean.
Again we missed our way; we took the shoulder of Ben Sletil too high up, and it was getting dark when we struck the road, as it turned out, a mile on the Auchentoul side of Forsinean. Of course no machine.
It was raining; it had rained the whole day, and looked as if it meant to rain for a week, and we took off our macintoshes to lighten the walk—we could not get much wetter. Presently we met a shepherd, who told us Forsinean and the trap were behind us, and, telling him to send the trap after us, we tramped the hard road the whole nine miles, arriving at the same time as the trap that followed.
Our portmanteau did not arrive till next morning, but the innkeeper found us dry flannels and a good supper; it was then 10 o'clock.
C. was very hopeful that grouse matters would quickly mend, and stuck to it for another season, and after that I was left with the whole cost of the affair for the following season, and seasons after that, which, with rent, keeper, and expenses, was not less than £700 a year, and nothing to shoot either, which was the worst part of the business.
Decorative line.
Neither C. nor I went near the place. Disease was gone, and so were the birds. It could have been truthfully advertised as perfectly free from disease, and lightly shot the previous season. In May, before nesting time, David hunted every beat, and found just fifty-two pairs of birds on the whole 24,000 acres.
In August he again hunted, and came across exactly the same number of broods as he had found pairs. They certainly were grand broods, averaging eight to a brood, and he managed to kill out nearly all the old cock birds, leaving but one old bird to each brood.
Dunbar was very unhappy, and, of course, I was the same, and we arranged to have a consultation, and I met him in Edinburgh, where he had occasion to be. Dunbar summed up the whole thing by saying, in his plump way, there must be no birds whatever killed for two years at least.
Glutt, in some way, was, fortunately, off Dunbar's shoulders, and on the hands of the proprietor, who had it in hand for three years afterwards, when Dunbar took it off his hands at a moderate rent.
Strathmore was still on lease, the lease expiring after the season of 1874, and, backing his opinion that no birds should be killed in 1874, he arranged with the tenants that, in consideration of no grouse being taken off, he would abate half the year's rent.
He asked me if I would take Strathmore off his hands for the remaining fourteen years of his lease. "You shall have the whole 19,000 acres, including Achlybster, for £350 a year." But I was not a jobber in moors, and already had more than enough on my hands; but, if I had been clear of Dalnawillan, I think I would have closed with him.
The railway was making, and as the Rumsdale beats are too far away from Dalnawillan Lodge to shoot them conveniently from there, Dunbar suggested that I should build a small lodge near to the proposed station, and let off 10,000 acres of the Rumsdale side of Dalnawillan so soon as the stock of birds would warrant it.
That idea suited me down to the ground, as the remaining 13,000 or 14,000 acres attached to Dalnawillan was ample for the personal shooting of myself and sons, with, perhaps, a friend; the idea was eventually carried out at the proper time.
In July Douglas and I went to Rhiconich, on the west coast of Sutherland, for a fortnight's sea trout fishing. It was a disappointment; firstly, it was dry hot weather, that, of course, stopped sea trout fishing.
In the evening the midges were something unbearable, and drove us on to the sea loch trolling for lythe. We were pretty successful, but very soon used up everything in the shape of phantoms and spinners, and had to take to small trout for spinning.
So soon as a lythe of any size took your spinner, down he went into the seaweed tangle, and many were lost and the spinner with him.
We managed to get twenty-one lythe, weighing 83lb., of which some were up to 10lb., but we lost most of the best fish in the weeds.
On our way back we stopped at Overscaig, on Loch Shin, for a day's trout fishing, ending in a very fatiguing fiasco; we had a boat and two rowers, David and a gillie from the inn.
The morning was a nice fishing morning, and we made our way down to the Faig mouth, and got on pretty well, but, the wind changing, we put across to the other shore, and fished away.
As the day wore on, the wind increased, blowing a gale straight down the loch, so we got out of the boat, and, with a good deal of trouble, hugging the shore, the two men managed to get her back to just opposite Overscaig.
There we found two other men, who had come up from Lairg, and were in the same fix as ourselves.
It was raining heavily as well as blowing.
Taking advantage of a lull of wind, we tried to get across, but when a third way across, the wind again rose, and we had our work to do to edge the boat head to wind to gain the shore without an accident.
What was to be done? asked the other party. I said that I saw nothing for it but to walk round the head of the loch. They consulted with their boatman as to this, and then said they could not do it. Certainly, they had come out with thin boots and frock coats and white shirts, as they would have done on a fine afternoon at Richmond, totally unfit to face a wild Highland night.
"We have had no dinner," says one; "of course, we expected to get to Overscaig to dinner." "Well," I said, "we have a little of our lunch left, and you are welcome;" but they turned away. I believe they thought I was chaffing them.
However, there was the choice of stopping out on the moor that wild night or footing it, and we chose what we thought the lesser of two evils.
It was a very long three miles to head the loch and the swamp at the top. The shore of the loch was very deep peaty boggy ground, broken every fifty yards with deep gullies and burns and drains, clambering down and clambering up.
It was then quite dark, a howling wind and rain in our teeth.
At last, with nearly two hours' work, we crossed the Alt Na Ba Burn, and, heading the swamp, got to the river that connects Loch Graim with Loch Shin.
But, horror! the river was in spate, and not safe to cross.
We felt dead beat, and sat down in the wet; we had a little whiskey and water, but nobody said anything; one tried to light a pipe, but the matches were wet, and so was everything else outside our skins. We tried to look at our watches, but too dark to see them.
It was getting towards midnight. We started again, keeping along the banks of the river, to look for a ford. Near the outlet of Loch Graim the river was wider, and therefore the stream not so strong, and the bottom was hard. I had a long landing-net staff, and piloted the way; the water was up to the bottom of the waistcoat—an even depth, and gravel bottom, so we were all quickly safe across. Folks will say what a fuss about crossing up to your middle; yes, but handicap it with a dark howling night, an unknown ford, and all your courage already pretty nearly pumped out of you, and it will not be found to be quite so simple as it looks.
There was yet a mile of swampy walking over moorland, in the direction of the road, before it was struck, but then we were not more than two and a half miles from the inn, and soon put that behind us.
It was 1.30 a.m. when we reached the inn; they were waiting up most anxiously, fearing some serious accident, but could hardly credit that we had headed the loch, and on such a fearful night.
I have had many long wet moorland tramps, but nothing approaching to our Loch Shin episode.
I told David to see that our gillie had a good tea and eating, and some hot whiskey and water, but he came back to say the fellow was so thoroughly beat that he had gone to bed, too tired and done up to eat or drink anything.
Decorative line.
In June I went to Dalnawillan trout fishing.
The Thurso river rises in the heights of the Glutt shootings on the Sutherland march amongst a bewildering labyrinth of flows and black morasses, hideous, and gaunt. I have seen the inside of most Scotch wildernesses, but there is nothing anywhere within the four seas—aye, take in Ireland as well—that at all approaches the plateau from which descend the Berriedale, the Halladale, the Thurso, and the northern water shed of the Helmsdale, at a height of about 1400ft. above the sea.
The Thurso, commencing and for many miles a mere burn, descends from the heights through low flats, interspersed with three rocky gorges or glutts (from which, no doubt, the name of the shooting), of from half a mile to a mile each in length, the burn tumbling through them in a succession of small falls and rocky pools; and in the lowest gorge was a waterfall or force, as it would be termed in Yorkshire or Westmoreland.
One day fly fishing up the river, as far up as the entrance to the first gorge, I tried some of the rocky pools. They were quite unsuitable for the fly, but I took a number of pretty, little, bright trout.
Talking it over with the gillies next day, they said there was no remembrance of anybody ever having taken any fish with rod and line, or any other way, up in the rocky water.
Well, I bethought myself, as I felt sure there would be fish as far up as there was water, and that something might be done with the worm worth talking about in a small way.
I was an adept in that style of fishing, having had much experience and success in fishing small wooded brooks in Warwickshire. My mode of fishing was with a three-jointed light stiff bamboo rod, bored down the middle; the line, a very thin one, passing through and out at a hole near where the hand holds the bottom joint.
When too long take off the bottom joint; no reel, simply a few yards of line running loose behind, the hook whipped to one or two feet of gut, and one No. 6 shot about six inches above the hook, having no rings, no line bagging, you could push in the point of the rod anywhere, and drop the worm by shaking the rod.
A large bag of small worms was provided, and the tackle Stewart fashion, but with two small hooks only, and pretty fine gut.
David and I started away, and were at the foot of the lower gorge by 10 a.m., David behind me; and soon the fun was fast and furious, every little fall and the pool below it, the worm no sooner in the bubbles and froth than tug, tug, tug. "Lift him out, unhook him David and bait again; no, the worm will do." Tug again; "Unhook him and bait this time." Tug again. "Well, three out of that little hole is not so bad!"
David was disgusted at messing with such trash, as he termed it, but soon even he warmed to it.
The waterfall had a nice pool scooped out by the falling water, and, standing down stream below the fall, thirty came out of that place.
It was great fun to come across water and fish in these islands that were totally unsophisticated.
We worked up and up for miles, until the burn—aye, and the fish too—began to get very small, and at five o'clock we turned back, fishing a few of the best places on our way. The waterfall gave but two more, and I expect that was the last two in the pool.
Weighed at the lodge, deducting the basket, they scaled just 23-1/2lb., and counted out 188 trout, just eight to the pound, and pretty little bright fellows they were.
David looked at them deprecatingly; repentance at being a party to anything so derogatory had come over him, and he viewed them philosophically, with the sole remark, "What a mess!"
My fishing was in low water. My son Douglas went up a few days after, meeting a rise of water, and he also had a great number, but out of places that I had not fished in low water.
The waterfall yielded none.
The burn was tried again on another day, but it was done for a season or two; as in other things in the world, you can't eat a cake and have it.
In August I took down my family party for their holidays. There would be little or nothing to shoot, a few cock birds to pick out of the broods and some sundries, of course. The boys could fish away for trout and get a few odd salmon out of the Upper Thurso and Loch More, but they were very coppery and red at that season.
During the first fortnight David and I hunted the whole of the ground, killing the old cocks out of the broods when opportunity occurred.
The increase of birds was very satisfactory, quite 150 broods on the ground, and fine broods too.
Dunbar had been very fortunate, and let Strathmore to an old connection; rather more birds had been left by the scourge on the lower beats of Strathmore than on Dalnawillan. Those beats are the best ground in Caithness, and if there are any birds there they naturally will be. Dunbar looked the matter well in the face, told the tale, the whole tale, and let it on a seven years' lease, commencing, if I remember right, with a rent of £300, increasing up to £575, or thereabouts.
The gentleman who took it knew exactly what he was about. The good years that would accrue after disease were before him.
The year after the expiration of the seven-year lease and cycle, disease was again ravaging, and there was little or no shooting for two or three years after that.
The new tenant nursed the birds the first season, killing only a few cocks or so.
In September, with one of the boys, I went over to Orkney, to try the fishing of the Loch of Stennes. We landed from the tub of a steamer that plied between Scrabster and Stromness, after a terribly bad passage across the Pentland Firth. The tide ran very strong, the wind met it, and the steamer, built on the lines of a walnut shell, rolled about in the trough of the sea.
We landed, and hiring a cart to carry our traps, tramped away to the top of the loch in Harray parish, and lodged with Peter Flett, farmer and miller.
The trout were most beautiful, equal to any sea trout, but not plentiful, anyhow very stiff to rise; they ran all sizes. Our best day to two rods was 17-1/2lb., the largest scaling 2lb. 6oz.
On one other day we had fish of 1lb. 4oz. and 1lb., and amongst our take were some half-pound sea trout.
The loch was terribly ottered by the small farmers and crofters, but with very coarse horse-hair tackle. Certainly they did not get many; but, no doubt, that put them down from rising to the fly.
The ottering was not poaching, because every freeholder had the right, and nearly all were freeholders.
I asked Flett where he got his land from. "My father," said he; "and he had it from his father, and his father before him." I dare say if Peter and I could have traced it we should have found that the title commenced with his Scandinavian ancestors, who stole the land from the Pict, who lived in an underground house designed after the pattern of an improved fox-earth.
"What is done with the younger sons, Flett?"
"Oh, they go to the fishing, or into the Hudson Bay Co.'s employment." That was primogeniture with a vengeance. I wonder what the land reformers would have to say to that.
"Flett, what deeds have you to show?"—"Deeds! what do we want with deeds?"—"Well, suppose you want to mortgage."—"Orkney people don't mortgage," says Flett, with his nose in the air.
In a few days we had enough.
We loaded our traps on Peter's cart, and returned to Stromness, looking at an underground Pict's house on the way, where perhaps Flett's ancestor had disposed of the aborigines, by smoking them, and stopping up the outlets, as you would stifle rats.
Also we saw the Stones of Stennis, which, as Druidical remains, rank with Stonehenge.
We stopped on our way at the bridge that crosses the outlet of the loch to the sea, to try for sea trout. The tide water comes up to the bridge, and a little beyond, and from the bridge to the sea was about a mile.
On the rise and fall of the tide we landed six sea trout weighing 6-1/2lb., the largest 2-3/4lb.
On the fall of the tide the sea trout stopped taking, and then the sillocks came as fast as possible. We had seventy-nine of them in little over an hour.
I was very much pleased with Orkney. The land was good, and the climate was better than that of the mainland.
There were some grouse, and, as far as I could learn, the best moor was in Harray parish, where we had been fishing.
The moor was a common, and the whole of the commoners joined in granting a lease to the tenant of the shooting. I think the rent was £35 a-year, and he took off about 200 brace of grouse, and a really considerable number of snipe and plover, and I believe it was true that there was no disease. The game sold for more than paid the rent.