_Quiverfield, Haddingtonshire, Monday._--You can't spend twenty-four
hours at Quiverfield without having borne in upon you the truth that
the only thing to do in Scotland is to play goff. (On other side of
Tweed they call it golf. Here we are too much in a hurry to get at
the game to spend time on unnecessary consonant.) The waters of
what VICTOR HUGO called "The First of the Fourth" lave the links at
Quiverfield. Blue as the Mediterranean they have been in a marvellous
autumn, soon to lapse into November. We can see the Bass Rock from the
eighth hole, and can almost hear the whirr of the balls skimming with
swallow flight over the links at North Berwick.
PRINCE ARTHUR here to-day, looking fully ten years younger than when
I last saw him at Westminster. Plays through live-long day, and drives
off fourteen miles for dinner at Whittinghame, thinking no more of it
than if he were crossing Palace Yard. Our host, WAVERLEY PEN, is happy
in possession of links at his park gates. All his own, for self
and friends. You step through the shrubbery, and there are the
far-reaching links; beyond them the gleaming waters of the Forth.
Stroll out immediately after breakfast to meet the attendant caddies;
play goff till half-past one; reluctantly break off for luncheon; go
back to complete the fearsome foursome; have tea brought out to save
time; leave off in bare time to dress for dinner; talk goff at dinner;
arrange matches after dinner; and the new morning finds the caddies
waiting as before.
Decidedly the only thing to do in Scotland is to play goff.
_Deeside, Aberdeenshire, Wednesday._--FINGEN, M.P., once told an
abashed House of Commons that he "owned a mountain in Scotland." Find,
on visiting him in his ancestral home, that he owns a whole range. Go
up one or two of them; that comparatively easy; difficulty presents
itself when we try to get down. Man and boy, FINGEN has lived here
fifty years; has not yet acquired knowledge necessary to guide a
party home after ascending one of his mountains. Walking up in cool of
afternoon, we usually get home sore-footed and hungry about midnight.
[Illustration: Fingen's Finger.]
"Must be going now," says FINGEN, M.P., when we have seen view from
top of mountain. "Just time to get down before dark. But I know short
cut; be there in a jiffy. Come along."
We come along. At end of twenty minutes find ourselves in front of
impassable gorge.
"Ha!" says FINGEN, M.P., cheerily. "Must have taken wrong turn; better
go back and start again."
All very well to say go back; but where were we? FINGEN, M.P., knows;
wets his finger; holds it up.
"Ha!" he says, with increased joyousness of manner; "the wind is
blowing that way, is it? Then we turn to the left."
Another twenty minutes stumbling through aged heather. Path trends
downwards.
"That's all right," says FINGEN, M.P.; "must lead on to the road."
Instead of which we nearly fall into a bubbling burn. Go back again;
make bee line up acclivity nearly as steep as side of house; find
ourselves again on top of mountain.
"How lucky!" shouts FINGEN, M.P., beaming with delight.
As if we had been trying all this time to get to top of mountain
instead of to bottom!
Wants to wet his finger again and try how the wind lies. We protest.
Let us be saved that at least. FINGEN leads off in quite another
direction. By rocky pathway which threatens sprains; through bushes
and brambles that tear the clothes; by dangerous leaps from rock to
rock he brings us to apparently impenetrable hedge. We stare forlorn.
"Ha!" says FINGEN, M.P., more aggressively cheerful than ever. "The
road is on other side. Thought we would come upon it somewhere."
Somehow or other we crawl through.
"Nothing like having an eye to the lay of country," says FINGEN, M.P.,
as we limp along the road. "It's a sort of instinct, you know. If I
hadn't been with you, you might have had to camp out all night on the
mountain."
[Illustration: The Crack of the Whip('s Pate!)]
They don't play goff at Deeside. They bicycle. Down the long avenue
with spreading elm trees deftly trained to make triumphal arches, the
bicycles come and go. WHIPSROOM, M.P., thinks opportunity convenient
for acquiring the art of cycling. W. is got up with consummate art.
Has had his trousers cut short at knee in order to display ribbed
stockings of rainbow hue. Loose tweed-jacket, blood-red necktie, white
felt hat with rim turned down all round, combine to lend him air of
a Drury Lane bandit out of work. Determined to learn to ride the
bicycle, but spends most of the day on his hands and knees, or on his
back. Looking down avenue at any moment pretty sure to find W. either
running into the iron fence, coming off sideways, or bolting head
first over the handles of his byke. Get quite new views of him
fore-shortened in all possible ways, some that would be impossible to
any but a man of his determination.
"Never had a man stay in the house," says FINGEN, M.P., ruefully,
"who so cut up the lawn with his head, or indented the gravel with his
elbows and his knees."
Evidently I was mistaken about goff. Cycling's the thing in Scotland.
_Goasyoucan, Inverness-shire, Saturday._--Wrong again. Not goff nor
cycling is the thing to do in Scotland. It's stalking. Soon learn that
great truth at Goasyoucan. The hills that encircle the house densely
populated with stags. To-day three guns grassed nine, one a royal.
This the place to spend a happy day, crouching down among the heather
awaiting the fortuitous moment. Weather no object. Rain or snow
out you go, submissive to guidance and instruction of keeper; by
comparison with whose tyranny life of the ancient galley-slave was
perfect freedom.
Consummation of human delight this, to lie prone on your face amid
the wet heather, with the rain pattering down incessantly, or the snow
pitilessly falling, covering you up flake by flake as if it were a
robin and you a babe in the wood. Mustn't stir; mustn't speak; if
you can conveniently dispense with the operation, better not breathe.
Sometimes, after morning and greater part of afternoon thus cheerfully
spent, you may get a shot; even a stag. Also you may not; or, having
attained the first, may miss the latter. At any rate you have spent a
day of exhilarating delight.
Stalking is evidently the thing to do in Scotland. It's a far cry to
the Highlands. Happily there is Arthur's Seat by Edinburgh Town where
beginners can practise, and old hands may feign delight of early
triumphs.
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