Crummie-Toddie
Almost at the last moment Silverbridge and his brother Gerald were
induced to join Lord Popplecourt's shooting-party in Scotland. The
party perhaps might more properly be called the party of Reginald
Dobbes, who was a man knowing in such matters. It was he who made
the party up. Popplecourt and Silverbridge were to share the expense
between them, each bringing three guns. Silverbridge brought his
brother and Frank Tregear,--having refused a most piteous petition
on the subject from Major Tifto. With Popplecourt of course came
Reginald Dobbes, who was, in truth, to manage everything, and Lord
Nidderdale, whose wife had generously permitted him this recreation.
The shooting was in the west of Perthshire, known as Crummie-Toddie,
and comprised an enormous acreage of so-called forest and moor. Mr.
Dobbes declared that nothing like it had as yet been produced in
Scotland. Everything had been made to give way to deer and grouse.
The thing had been managed so well that the tourist nuisance had been
considerably abated. There was hardly a potato patch left in the
district, nor a head of cattle to be seen. There were no inhabitants
remaining, or so few that they could be absorbed in game-preserving
or cognate duties. Reginald Dobbes, who was very great at grouse,
and supposed to be capable of outwitting a deer by venatical wiles
more perfectly than any other sportsman in Great Britain, regarded
Crummie-Toddie as the nearest thing there was to a Paradise on earth.
Could he have been allowed to pass one or two special laws for his
own protection, there might still have been improvement. He would
like the right to have all intruders thrashed by the gillies within
an inch of their lives; and he would have had a clause in his lease
against the making of any new roads, opening of footpaths, or
building of bridges. He had seen somewhere in print a plan for
running a railway from Callender to Fort Augustus right through
Crummie-Toddie! If this were done in his time the beauty of the
world would be over. Reginald Dobbes was a man of about forty,
strong, active, well-made, about five feet ten in height, with broad
shoulders and greatly-developed legs. He was not a handsome man,
having a protrusive nose, high cheek-bones, and long upper lip; but
there was a manliness about his face which redeemed it. Sport was the
business of his life, and he thoroughly despised all who were not
sportsmen. He fished and shot and hunted during nine or ten months
of the year, filling up his time as best he might with coaching polo,
and pigeon-shooting. He regarded it as a great duty to keep his
body in the firmest possible condition. All his eating and all his
drinking was done upon a system, and he would consider himself to
be guilty of weak self-indulgence were he to allow himself to break
through sanitary rules. But it never occurred to him that his whole
life was one of self-indulgence. He could walk his thirty miles with
his gun on his shoulder as well now as he could ten years ago; and
being sure of this, was thoroughly contented with himself. He had a
patrimony amounting to perhaps £1000 a year, which he husbanded so as
to enjoy all his amusements to perfection. No one had ever heard of
his sponging on his friends. Of money he rarely spoke, sport being
in his estimation the only subject worthy of a man's words. Such was
Reginald Dobbes, who was now to be the master of the shooting at
Crummie-Toddie.
Crummie-Toddie was but twelve miles from Killancodlem, Mrs. Montacute
Jones's highland seat; and it was this vicinity which first induced
Lord Silverbridge to join the party. Mabel Grex was to be at
Killancodlem, and, determined as he still was to ask her to be his
wife, he would make this his opportunity. Of real opportunity there
had been none at Richmond. Since he had had his ring altered and had
sent it to her there had come but a word or two of answer. "What am
I to say? You unkindest of men! To keep it or to send it back would
make me equally miserable. I shall keep it till you are married, and
then give it to your wife." This affair of the ring had made him more
intent than ever. After that he heard that Isabel Boncassen would
also be at Killancodlem, having been induced to join Mrs. Montacute
Jones's swarm of visitors. Though he was dangerously devoid of
experience, still he felt that this was unfortunate. He intended to
marry Mabel Grex. And he could assure himself that he thoroughly
loved her. Nevertheless he liked making love to Isabel Boncassen. He
was quite willing to marry and settle down, and looked forward with
satisfaction to having Mabel Grex for his wife. But it would be
pleasant to have a six-months run of flirting and love-making before
this settlement, and he had certainly never seen any one with whom
this would be so delightful as with Miss Boncassen. But that the two
ladies should be at the same house was unfortunate.
He and Gerald reached Crummie-Toddie late on the evening of August
11th, and found Reginald Dobbes alone. That was on Wednesday.
Popplecourt and Nidderdale ought to have made their appearance on
that morning, but had telegraphed to say that they would be detained
two days on their route. Tregear, whom hitherto Dobbes had never
seen, had left his arrival uncertain. This carelessness on such
matters was very offensive to Mr. Dobbes, who loved discipline and
exactitude. He ought to have received the two young men with open
arms because they were punctual; but he had been somewhat angered by
what he considered the extreme youth of Lord Gerald. Boys who could
not shoot were, he thought, putting themselves forward before their
time. And Silverbridge himself was by no means a first-rate shot.
Such a one as Silverbridge had to be endured because from his
position and wealth he could facilitate such arrangements as these.
It was much to have to do with a man who would not complain if an
extra fifty pounds were wanted. But he ought to have understood that
he was bound in honour to bring down competent friends. Of Tregear's
shooting Dobbes had been able to learn nothing. Lord Gerald was a lad
from the Universities; and Dobbes hated University lads. Popplecourt
and Nidderdale were known to be efficient. They were men who could
work hard and do their part of the required slaughter. Dobbes proudly
knew that he could make up for some deficiency by his own prowess;
but he could not struggle against three bad guns. What was the use
of so perfecting Crummie-Toddie as to make it the best bit of ground
for grouse and deer in Scotland, if the men who came there failed
by their own incapacity to bring up the grand total of killed to a
figure which would render Dobbes and Crummie-Toddie famous throughout
the whole shooting world? He had been hard at work on other matters.
Dogs had gone amiss,--or guns, and he had been made angry by the
champagne which Popplecourt caused to be sent down. He knew what
champagne meant. Whisky-and-water, and not much of it, was the liquor
which Reginald Dobbes loved in the mountains.
"Don't you call this a very ugly country?" Silverbridge asked as soon
as he arrived. Now it is the case that the traveller who travels
into Argyllshire, Perthshire, and Inverness, expects to find lovely
scenery; and it was also true that the country through which they had
passed for the last twenty miles had been not only bleak and barren,
but uninteresting and ugly. It was all rough open moorland, never
rising into mountains, and graced by no running streams, by no forest
scenery, almost by no foliage. The lodge itself did indeed stand
close upon a little river, and was reached by a bridge that crossed
it; but there was nothing pretty either in the river or the bridge.
It was a placid black little streamlet, which in that portion of
its course was hurried by no steepness, had no broken rocks in its
bed, no trees on its low banks, and played none of those gambols
which make running water beautiful. The bridge was a simple low
construction with a low parapet, carrying an ordinary roadway up
to the hall door. The lodge itself was as ugly as a house could be,
white, of two stories, with the door in the middle and windows on
each side, with a slate roof, and without a tree near it. It was in
the middle of the shooting, and did not create a town around itself
as do sumptuous mansions, to the great detriment of that seclusion
which is favourable to game. "Look at Killancodlem," Dobbes had been
heard to say--"a very fine house for ladies to flirt in; but if you
find a deer within six miles of it I will eat him first and shoot
him afterwards." There was a Spartan simplicity about Crummie-Toddie
which pleased the Spartan mind of Reginald Dobbes.
"Ugly, do you call it?"
"Infernally ugly," said Lord Gerald.
"What did you expect to find? A big hotel, and a lot of cockneys?
If you come after grouse, you must come to what the grouse thinks
pretty."
"Nevertheless, it is ugly," said Silverbridge, who did not choose
to be "sat upon." "I have been at shootings in Scotland before, and
sometimes they are not ugly. This I call beastly." Whereupon Reginald
Dobbes turned upon his heel and walked away.
"Can you shoot?" he said afterwards to Lord Gerald.
"I can fire off a gun, if you mean that," said Gerald.
"You have never shot much?"
"Not what you call very much. I'm not so old as you are, you know.
Everything must have a beginning." Mr. Dobbes wished "the beginning"
might have taken place elsewhere; but there had been some truth in
the remark.
"What on earth made you tell him crammers like that?" asked
Silverbridge, as the brothers sat together afterwards smoking on the
wall of the bridge.
"Because he made an ass of himself; asking me whether I could shoot."
On the next morning they started at seven. Dobbes had determined to
be cross, because, as he thought, the young men would certainly keep
him waiting; and was cross because by their punctuality they robbed
him of any just cause for offence. During the morning on the moor
they were hardly ever near enough each other for much conversation,
and very little was said. According to arrangement made they returned
to the house for lunch, it being their purpose not to go far from
home till their numbers were complete. As they came over the bridge
and put down their guns near the door, Mr. Dobbes spoke the first
good-humoured word they had heard from his lips. "Why did you tell me
such an infernal--, I would say lie, only perhaps you mightn't like
it?"
"I told you no lie," said Gerald.
"You've only missed two birds all the morning, and you have shot
forty-two. That's uncommonly good sport."
"What have you done?"
"Only forty," and Mr. Dobbes seemed for the moment to be gratified
by his own inferiority. "You are a deuced sight better than your
brother."
"Gerald's about the best shot I know," said Silverbridge.
"Why didn't he tell?"
"Because you were angry when we said the place was ugly."
"I see all about it," said Dobbes. "Nevertheless when a fellow comes
to shoot he shouldn't complain because a place isn't pretty. What you
want is a decent house as near as you can have it to your ground. If
there is anything in Scotland to beat Crummie-Toddie I don't know
where to find it. Shooting is shooting you know, and touring is
touring."
Upon that he took very kindly to Lord Gerald, who, even after the
arrival of the other men, was second only in skill to Dobbes himself.
With Nidderdale, who was an old companion, he got on very well.
Nidderdale ate and drank too much, and refused to be driven beyond a
certain amount of labour, but was in other respects obedient and knew
what he was about. Popplecourt was disagreeable, but he was a fairly
good shot and understood what was expected of him. Silverbridge
was so good-humoured, that even his manifest faults,--shooting
carelessly, lying in bed and wanting his dinner,--were, if not
forgiven, at least endured. But Tregear was an abomination. He could
shoot well enough and was active, and when he was at the work seemed
to like it;--but he would stay away whole days by himself, and when
spoken to would answer in a manner which seemed to Dobbes to be flat
mutiny. "We are not doing it for our bread," said Tregear.
"I don't know what you mean."
"There's no duty in killing a certain number of these animals." They
had been driving deer on the day before and were to continue the work
on the day in question. "I'm not paid fifteen shillings a week for
doing it."
"I suppose if you undertake to do a thing you mean to do it. Of
course you're not wanted. We can make the double party without you."
"Then why the mischief should you growl at me?"
"Because I think a man should do what he undertakes to do. A man who
gets tired after three days' work of this kind would become tired if
he were earning his bread."
"Who says I am tired? I came here to amuse myself."
"Amuse yourself!"
"And as long as it amuses me I shall shoot, and when it does not I
shall give it up."
This vexed the governor of Crummie-Toddie much. He had learned to
regard himself as the arbiter of the fate of men while they were
sojourning under the same autumnal roof as himself. But a defalcation
which occurred immediately afterwards was worse. Silverbridge
declared his intention of going over one morning to Killancodlem.
Reginald Dobbes muttered a curse between his teeth, which was visible
by the anger on his brow to all the party. "I shall be back to-night,
you know," said Silverbridge.
"A lot of men and women who pretend to come there for shooting," said
Dobbes angrily, "but do all the mischief they can."
"One must go and see one's friends, you know."
"Some girl!" said Dobbes.
But worse happened than the evil so lightly mentioned. Silverbridge
did go over to Killancodlem; and presently there came back a man with
a cart, who was to return with a certain not small proportion of his
luggage.
"It's hardly honest, you know," said Reginald Dobbes.