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Bit behind in telling you what new... this book is an interesting story of hunting, shooting and fishing in the Western Isles. Here is a bit from the first chapter...
AND so it’s all over; and, like the M’G-regor, I am landless — or, rather, shooting-quarterless. I must bid adieu to the home of twenty years, to seek another, and begin the world again—old, worn out almost, but tough still.
They might as well have let me linger out the two or three years the old legs would have carried me still, and left me and my doggies in peace. But that was not to be. I had spent years in turning a bad shooting into a good one; I had tried to civilise, as much as in my power lay, the district in which I lived. I was not hated by the surrounding inhabitants. But, then, I could not afford the vastly increased rent demanded for my own creation; and so I vacated my quarters for some more opulent successor. And sorrowful indeed was my departure, and the parting with the friends of those twenty years. The companions of the wild sports of those outlandish countries become your friends and associates; and you can venture to make them so, for the Highlander is a gentleman at heart, and never forgets his respect for you, so long as you respect yourself. Besides this, if you have ever killed a stag, a salmon, or an otter in his company, you stand well with him for the rest of your days. There were also other remembrances that bound us much to one another, which, though nothing to the world, were much to ourselves. As, then, keepers, and stalkers, and gillies wrung my hand as we drank the parting “morning” together, I felt there was truth in that grasp—nay, even in the tear that stood in the eye of some, and certainly in my own. It was agony, I own, to leave that desolate home; and when I reached the hill-top, from 'which I caught the first glimpse of that long-loved cottage, like the Highland woman, I sat me down and cried. But, as I said, it is over; and what is to be done through the long dreary days, now that I can no longer live upon the hopes and prospects of my annual migration to my wild home? I will try and recollect the past, and solace myself with giving some of its .reminiscences, collected from notes, and journals, and game-books kept during some twenty shooting seasons passed there. They will be truthful, for it is a land with too many charms, not only for my perhaps too partial recollection, but for every true sportsman, not to be able to bear criticism and truth; and those only who do not or cannot appreciate its true worth, will feel any soreness at the remarks I may at times make upon its failings
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/lews/index.htm
Alastair
AND so it’s all over; and, like the M’G-regor, I am landless — or, rather, shooting-quarterless. I must bid adieu to the home of twenty years, to seek another, and begin the world again—old, worn out almost, but tough still.
They might as well have let me linger out the two or three years the old legs would have carried me still, and left me and my doggies in peace. But that was not to be. I had spent years in turning a bad shooting into a good one; I had tried to civilise, as much as in my power lay, the district in which I lived. I was not hated by the surrounding inhabitants. But, then, I could not afford the vastly increased rent demanded for my own creation; and so I vacated my quarters for some more opulent successor. And sorrowful indeed was my departure, and the parting with the friends of those twenty years. The companions of the wild sports of those outlandish countries become your friends and associates; and you can venture to make them so, for the Highlander is a gentleman at heart, and never forgets his respect for you, so long as you respect yourself. Besides this, if you have ever killed a stag, a salmon, or an otter in his company, you stand well with him for the rest of your days. There were also other remembrances that bound us much to one another, which, though nothing to the world, were much to ourselves. As, then, keepers, and stalkers, and gillies wrung my hand as we drank the parting “morning” together, I felt there was truth in that grasp—nay, even in the tear that stood in the eye of some, and certainly in my own. It was agony, I own, to leave that desolate home; and when I reached the hill-top, from 'which I caught the first glimpse of that long-loved cottage, like the Highland woman, I sat me down and cried. But, as I said, it is over; and what is to be done through the long dreary days, now that I can no longer live upon the hopes and prospects of my annual migration to my wild home? I will try and recollect the past, and solace myself with giving some of its .reminiscences, collected from notes, and journals, and game-books kept during some twenty shooting seasons passed there. They will be truthful, for it is a land with too many charms, not only for my perhaps too partial recollection, but for every true sportsman, not to be able to bear criticism and truth; and those only who do not or cannot appreciate its true worth, will feel any soreness at the remarks I may at times make upon its failings
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/lews/index.htm
Alastair