_An old man cried, “Umbrella to sell.” It had no handle.
He met an old woman who cried she had an umbrella
to sell, but only the handle. Each called what they had
an umbrella, but only the man’s could keep off the rain._
There is a small book, written by one of the greatest masters of
fiction. No romance stirs the blood, excites the imagination of weary
men, as this book does. Lever, Dumas, Hugo are pigmies compared to this
giant among story-tellers.
It is a small book—no matter its colour—its pages number some hundreds,
and they can be read, re-read, and read yet again. On every page is the
same story differently, and delightfully told. It never palls. A wise
woman is she who, seeing her husband tired and perhaps bored, slips
into his hands this volume of immortal prose. If he be a sportsman,
his chair comfortable, and the fire brightly burning, all his worries
will vanish like “smoke” on the hillside, and for the space of some
hours he will be at peace, tramping once again the moors, fishing the
rivers, the lochs, and climbing the hills he loves. Marcus, lonely and
deserted, opened the book and read:
£600: Exceptionally good shooting. Average bag 245 brace grouse. Lodge
contains dining-room, drawing-room, ten bedrooms, bathroom, and
complete offices. Hotel, post, telegraph, quite close. Nearest station
twenty-five miles. Very bracing climate and lovely scenery. Proprietor
pays—etc.
£500: Beautiful lodge, four and a half miles from station. Contains 4
public rooms, 6 bedrooms, bathroom, and ample servants’ accommodation.
Stabling, coach house. Kennels, gardens, 5000 acres, shooting yielding
80 brace grouse, 3000 rabbits, 100 hares, 200 brace partridges, 100
snipe, 200 pheasants, 20 duck, roe deer and plover, woodcock. Good
trout fishing in lochs and burns. Salmon fishing can be had.
£450: 10,000 acres, mostly moorland, yielding about 250 brace grouse
(limit), four stags, besides other game. Good woodcock and snipe and
wild fowl shooting, in winter. Exclusive right to the fishing in
whole of river, six miles, both banks. And in one of the finest lochs
in Scotland, which holds sea trout and occasionally a salmon. Lodge
situated in the midst of magnificent scenery—
Marcus leant forward and re-filled his pipe—the shadow of a great peace
in his eyes—a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He had no wish
to be disturbed—let Shan’t stay with her aunt, and Diana, too, if she
wanted to—it was like the old game of Oranges and Lemons. They could
choose; he was Oranges—
Last season’s bag—6 stags, 200 brace grouse, 20 wild fowl, 111 hares,
and 90 sea trout—
He sighed and turned the pages.
£2000: Splendid sporting domain, yielding 80 or 84 stags, 500 brace
grouse and there are also roe deer, hares, wild fowl, salmon and
sea trout. Fishing in river from both banks, also trout fishing in
well-known loch and excellent trout fishing in many hill lochs—good
sea fishing [this for Pillar]. Very comfortable lodge situated at
the head of one of the finest lochs in Scotland, amidst magnificent
scenery—20 miles from station. Post and telegraph close by. Lodge
contains—hall, drawing-room, dining-room, smoking-room, gun room,
ample bedroom accommodation, two bathrooms, complete offices.
Proprietor pays—
“Not much,” murmured Marcus.
£250.
£200.
£270.
£300:—each in its small way buying for August and September perfect
happiness, and Marcus knew what that perfect happiness might be. Agents
say much, sometimes more than they need, but do they ever say anything
of six o’clock in the morning, on the moor, when the spiders’ webs, set
with diamonds, are slung from one tuft of heather to another, making
a wealth of jewels of untold value? Do they ever describe the joy of
walking home knee-deep in scented purple heather right into the setting
sun, after a day on the hill? Do they ever describe a fine day on the
West Coast, as the West Coast alone knows it? A fine day in Skye? No
day, for pure glory of fineness, can compare with it. (And it might
always be fine in Skye if people really believed in fairies.) Skye
paints her foreground as no other foreground is painted, so rich in
colour, so deep—so varied. No skies can vie with hers in blueness,
when they are blue. No distance is so enchanting in its softness. No
breeze so caressing in its gentleness. No hills can compare with the
Cuchullins in their splendid ruggedness, and the sun never sets in
Scotland, leaving behind him more glorious promises of his coming again
than he does in Skye. Do agents count these things? They must—and that
is why—if the grouse fail, the deer fade away, and the fish sulk—the
man who truly loves his Scotland will always pay his rent without
murmuring, for those glorious two months: and the day he gets back to
London, if he be a proper man, he will sit himself down in his chair,
his hand will reach out to the table at his elbow, and he will take
from the table a book that his wife, if she be a wise wife, has placed
there, and he will open it at any page and read—
£500—beau-ti-ful lodge, 40 miles from station—Contains—etc.—bag should
include—250 brace grouse, good woodcock and snipe—wild fowl—in the
winter—Exclusive right—
This is the book Marcus read on his return to London after sending
Shan’t back to the aunt of his detestation. It is a work of fiction
that should be in all circulating libraries, yet it is in none.
During the reading it came upon him—the inspiration—to offer as a
counter-attraction to Bestways—Scotland!
Could Diana resist a moor in Scotland? To shoot over which she might
ask any one she liked. What would Aunt Elsie do against a force so
overwhelming as this? It was late in the season to get a place, but
sometimes late in the day even a good place is to be had. Sometimes the
best places might be picked up at the last moment.
The next day Marcus lunched at his club, having interviewed agents
both hopeful and depressing. At the club he met a friend plunged in
the depths of melancholy. So deeply immersed was he that Marcus rose
buoyant on the crest of a wave of exultation. The friend’s wife was
ill. Marcus, sobered, expressed sympathy: the man, to a certain extent,
had brought it on himself by having a wife, but still Marcus was sorry
she was ill. Added to that the man had taken a place in Scotland to
which he could not go in consequence of his wife’s illness and the
agents said it was too late to sub-let it. Here Marcus was really
sympathetic. What sort of a place was it?—and out it all came—the same
grand old story. The blood that had run through the veins of Marcus now
coursed and by the end of luncheon the moor was practically his—he had
walked it. Its geographical position was scored on the tablecloth: its
marches defined by spoons and forks. So much was the place his that he
felt justified in telegraphing to Diana—“Got place Scotland, will you
come?” What about the hill now upon which Elsie had imagined herself
standing looking down upon poor Marcus?
When Diana got the telegram she read it aloud, and Elsie began feebly
about a picnic—and more picnics—and a possible dance—and more dances,
but Diana’s heart was already in the Highlands. “Darling Uncle Man!”
she cried. “Delicious old Marky Man!” And Marcus put his head under her
hand and swallowed with gratitude. “Not you, you darling, blessed black
angel,” she said.
“Bribery and corruption,” said Aunt Elsie, as she pulled furiously at
the weeds in the garden; “pure bribery—it isn’t that the child cares
for him—she only goes—because she wants to go to Scotland. I shall at
least have Dick. He would never desert me.” And to make sure of that
she went in and wrote to Dick—wrote of cricket matches—wrote in glowing
terms, showing an amazing knowledge of the game, which she felt was
bound to impress a small nephew. To which letter Dick wrote back:
DEAR AUNT ELSIE,—It’s jolly decent of you, but I’m a bit fed up with
cricket, and what’s more I might get stale if I played too much, and
what’s still more to the purpose is that Taboret Major has asked me
to go to Scotland. His people have taken a sort of castle there—what
d’you say to that? Don’t say no and break the heart of your anxious
nephew. Taboret Major says it’s a rippin’ place and there’s lots of
shooting and fishing. Old Wane says it’s a chance that shouldn’t be
missed—so I say.
Your loving and hopeful
DICK
P.S. What about my being confirmed next term? Do you think I need? I
don’t feel much like it at present and Taboret Major isn’t going to be
because he’s going to join the Scotch religion. I expect I shall be
converted when I’m in Scotland, so had I better wait to see? But then
I ought to say that Taboret Major is going to wear a kilt. I expect
this makes a difference. What do you think?
So even Dick was denied her, and Elsie went out into her garden where
the borders were full of blossoms which Diana loved, and into the
kitchen garden where grew vegetable marrows, things which Dick had
sworn he loved, and the aunt felt she had laboured in vain. She had
sown and Uncle Marcus would reap.