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.
[Illustration: 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:--
Braal 10,000
Strathmore and Achlybster 19,000
Chullacan and Bachlas 6,000
Dalnawillan 18,000
Glutt 15,000
------
68,000
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.