of the jackdaws and starlings. A contrast in most respects was another venerable fortalice, famous in local song and story, which had been brightened up into a modern shooting-lodge. Nothing could be more cheerful than the sunny situation, commanding the windings of a celebrated trout-stream, where it meandered among haughs and holms to the sea that skirted the horizon. The quaint dining - chamber, to which we had access "by kind permission of the proprietor," was lighted from an octagon of lancetshaped windows, each offering some picturesque variation of the view; while on the panels between were landscapes with sporting scenes by a clever north-country disciple of Landseer. One of them, in particular, all full of life and action, in which the stalwart old laird was landing a silvery sea-trout on a bit of gravelly beach among the rocks beneath, was enough to send any boy to rummage among the rods and flies in the keeper's private den, if a westerly wind and a cloudy sky proclaimed a fishing forenoon. And never, even on the shores of Loch Awe or Loch Leven, can we have eaten trout in such perfection, as those fresh run from the salt estuary of the Logie, which made but a leap, as it were, from the "Castle Pools" straight into the frying-pan.

Shooting lunches are among the pleasantest forms of picnics. It is true that we should dispense there with the presence of ladies, but there is no perfection in the pleasures of this world. When we were young, inexperienced, and madly enthusiastic, the autumn lunches on the moors, so far as the hours at which we partook of these went, were rather like French déjeûners à la fourchette. The ground on which we killed our first grouse was a bit of Lowland peat-moss, but

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a few miles from "the House." it was hardly worth while keeping a watcher on it, we used to be up betimes, in mortal fear of being anticipated. The good old horse was hitched into the dogcart, and away we went, before the thrushes in the shrubberies were well awakened; game-bags, luncheon-basket, and pointers inside, with the sturdy keeper overbalancing us behind, so that if the belly-band had snapped, a catastrophe was certain. Gamebags-heaven save the mark! The keeper's pockets would have held all our game, with something to spare. There was seldom more than a single covey in that moss, with the chance of some stray shots at birds scattered by our neighbours; and the possibility of picking up a snipe or a brace of wild duck. But there was rich heather with coarse grass in abundance among the moss-pots," and that single covey took a deal of finding. How conscientiously we trudged out the beats, as the August sun rose higher and hotter! How our flagging spirits were cheered by coming on some sign of the brood we were searching for! How we hated the worthy cottage-folk who were busy cutting their peats! and yet we soothed our bitter feelings hypocritically, as we questioned them as to anything they might have heard or seen. What an agitating moment it was, when that drawing of the dogs which had so often proved delusive, changed slowly into a steady point! and how flurried we were, when, after firing at random, we watched the birds skimming away scatheless! Scatheless at least, so far as we were concerned; for we never dreamed of disputing the keeper's claim to the brace he had knocked down over our shoulders for the dinner - table. But though those mornings were sometimes nearly bloodless, they were not altogether

without adventure. Once we were taxed with shooting without licences by a gentleman in fur cap and velveteens, whom our attendant had challenged for trespass; and with whom we were glad ignominiously to cry quits when he had solemnly pencilled our names on a scrap of wadding paper. Another day, in retrieving a fallen bird that had lighted on a patch of emerald turf, we found ourselves over head and ears in a "pot," with slippery sides which precluded the possibility of scrambling out of it. Nor were we dragged forth by the nape of the neck before we had swallowed several pints of moss-water, and swathed ourselves in the green duckweed as in an overcoat. In those days, as we need hardly say, we were never the worse for a ducking, whatever might be the fate of the powder and percussion-caps; and in a few minutes, all the fresher for the bath, were frisking about in the sunshine like a water-spaniel. Though we well remember that on that particular morning, the breakfast luncheon was even more welcome than usual, as it was spread out on the shady side of a peat-stack.

Years had flown by, and as Byron sings in "The Dream," "the boy had sprung to manhood." As we flattered ourselves, we could shoot more than tolerably; and a cousin, the companion of our boyish sports, had become the tenant of a crack moor. There was no lodge on the ground, so he had his quarters in a neighbouring inn. A more hospitable fellow than our cousin never existed, and in all the country-side he could hardly have chanced upon a man better fitted to second him in his ideas than our landlord. We lived up to the waists in clover; and nothing but indefatigable exercise in Highland air could have helped us in our highly laudable efforts to spare our host's feelings,

VOL. CXXX.-NO. DCCLXXXIX.

and do justice to his fare; though, indeed, so far as memory serves us, there was little sense of effort. Yet he would insist on sending up sirloins and haunch where a single joint was ordered; his chickens. changed to fowls, and his ducks to geese, and all the poultry was boiled or roasted in batches. Hodge-podge, with many pounds of mutton-cutlets swimming in the tureen, steamed opposite the savoury contents of a caldron that had swallowed a half-dozen of mountainhares; grilses were cooked in their uncurtailed proportions; prodigious pigeon-pies figured as unconsidered kickshaws; and as for the roughbooted muirfowl, they were roasted by triplets and quartettes. The table literally groaned under the load that was laid upon it, but the gillies and hangers-on of the house accounted satisfactorily for all the fragments of the feasts. We might well have been reminded of the festivities in the "Tent," which Christopher North and his companions of the "Noctes" set up by the Linn of Dee, not many miles away as the crow flew. And as the Ettrick Shepherd once observed, half-apologetically, we were youths of good, nay, of great, appetitesbut no gluttons. We settled into untroubled sleep ere our heads had well touched their pillows, and woke with the lightness of pleasant twenty-one, when Donald Macpherson's bony knuckles were heard rattling on the door-panels.

Going about your grouse-shooting at six A.M., or so, may not be the deadliest of systems if you are set upon heavy bags; but we are sure that early rising and walking are healthful, when you are in the full flush of your bodily powers. Never is the air so limpid, never are the skies so bright, as when the mists of the morning are lifting from the moors, and swathing them

H

selves turban - fashion round the nightcaps on the hill-tops. Never does the crow of the grouse-cock or the piping of the tiny moor-bird sound more cheery. The scent might perhaps be better; but we have not gone out shooting solely for slaughter. Yet somehow, should we be in luck, the bag fills rapidly, for the sunbeams are bright beyond all proportion to their power, and the dogs, as they range wide and strong, scarcely care to cool themselves in the numberless rills. For it is a land of waters: tiny rivulets flowing over the cliffs, and trickling down into the bigger rills; riils running into burns that meet and swell into streams, which are hurrying down many a glen to the great river in the valley. A land of waters, as you would say, had you seen it after some sudden downpour, when the brooks we passed almost dryshod a few hours before, had been changed into so many brawling torrents. But now we are picturing a perfect morning: so far as any flooding of the burns is concerned, we may shape our beats as seems best to us; now labouring to mid-thigh in the blooming heatherbeds in the bottoms; now slipping and stumbling on the steep hillsides, and anon plunging into the cool recesses of some corrie, setting a flock of wild-eyed sheep a-scampering. As each height is crowned, we come on a glorious prospect, with distant glimpses of Lowland landscapes down the purple vistas. Except for an occasional shepherd, there is seldom a human being visible in the foregrounds; for the little village has been left out of sight, nor do the avocations of the villagers lie in our direction. But as the sun is approaching the zenith, we begin to look villagewards with considerable interest; and soon a picturesque but familiar pair is seen emerging from an intervening hol

low. These are a pony with a capacious pair of panniers, and a boy who is piloting him through the heather. An interval of thirty minutes may be supposed to elapse while we make a cast after that broken covey and pick up a brace or two. It is time for luncheon, and something more, and well has luncheon been earned.

Was there ever more romantic spot than the Well of Cozeen, that diamond in the wilderness, though not in the desert? We are alınost as parched as the valiant Sir Kenneth of Scotland could have been, when he seated himself with the Saracen Emir by the fountain of Engaddi. Was ever draught more refreshing than that quaigh of cold water, slightly laced, and prettily tinted with the straw-coloured mountain-dew? No wonder; for the water bubbles up through a rift in the rock, and is screened besides from the sunshine by the hanging rowantree, which spreads its shade over the velvety margin of turf. We have a refrigerator of Nature's own patenting, in which the bottles of bitter ale and sherry are quickly recovering themselves from their exposure during the transit from the cellar of the inn. And we have the smoothest and most fragrant of possible luncheon - tables, around which we recline in unstudied attitudes, after the luxurious manner of the ancients. Sandwiches we hate, chiefly from associating them with railway refreshment-rooms. Nevertheless, the component parts of sandwiches may be excellent; and nothing can be more delicate than that beautifully marked beef, of which each slice, with its marrowy veins, is a picture; while the crisp salad and the yellow butter are in every way worthy of it; nor is the "loaf-bread" from the village baker's contemptible. "Loafbread" it is called locally in con

tradistinction to the oat-cakes, to which, with the Stilton, we shall come presently. Meanwhile the breasts and bitter backs of those cold grouse must be disposed of, as well as that very creditable imitation of a salmon mayonnaise, and those tarts of the blended raspberry and currant, which we candidly own to have been out of all rule. But then our magnificent host would insist upon arranging the menus for the mountains; and he had little fellowfeeling with human frailties. Besides, he would always clench each dispute by suggesting the alternatives of abstinence or whisky. If we liked, we might leave the contents of his basket alone and if not, we might make sure of settling them with his Glenlivet.

We are inclined to think our host was right. At least we were in the habit of sipping his Glenlivet discreetly, and we never knew his prescription to fail. Give us the shortest of untroubled snoozes by the side of the empty luncheonbaskets, and we shot better through the afternoon than when condemned to shorter commons. We have tried both plans and ought to know. For we had another friend, no less hospitable than the cousin we have anonymously immortalised, but who went on directly opposite principles. He stowed away a very sufficient breakfast, and then lay back for the late dinner, merely bridging the yawning abyss with some such trifle as a water-biscuit. He had higher hills and deeper valleys on his moors, with rougher walking and far broader beats. We might tramp a long half-dozen miles or more before we took the guns from the gillies; and knock off after a severe day's work, at least as far from the dinner-table. We like to do at Rome as do the Romans, and we scorned to feast when our friend

was fasting. Though sometimes it was hard to dissemble our melancholy as we thought of the splendid opportunities we had missed, while tantalising a vulture-like appetite on precipices brushed by the wings of the eagles. And what was the result? Far from demonstrating the merits of our friend's theory by the firmness of our step and the deadliness of our aim, the flesh used to fail altogether towards sunset; the muzzles of the gunbarrels seemed weighted with lead, and the shot went cutting the heather-tops without touching a feather of the game. It is true that, thanks to our strong vitality, we rallied after a bath and a change of dress; but though the cook had little cause to complain of us, we gained nothing, or less than nothing, by our voluntary self-denial.

But the Highlands are one thing, the Lowlands another. We hold that no man who prides himself on the cardinal virtues of temperance and self-denial, can indulge in reckless disregard of consequences when shooting the stubbles in September. We care nothing about insults to breakfast, but we demur to the injuries done to dinner. When we see the elaborate collation laid out under the greenwood tree; when we listen to the gurgle of strong ale from narrow-necked stone jars, or the more luxurious popping of lively champagne-corks, we always think of Pickwick, cold punch, and the pound where the indiscretions of the immortal sage were so swiftly visited by punishment. Light beer or lighter claret should be strong enough refreshment for any reasonable man; and if he keep the muzzle on over the solids, he is sure to be rewarded. As the year ages and the temperature cools, our conscience grows more elastic. Indeed in bleak autumn, and still more in bitter winter, we may own

to the reader in strict confidence, that unless the corners of the woods be invariably warm, we find the luncheon-hour the pleasantest passage in the day. The wind has been blowing through the closely-buttoned Norfolk jacket, warmly padded with waistcoats and woollen underclothing; or you have been kicking your heels in the halffrozen slush in the rides, vainly trying to keep the blood in circulation, when your taskmasters tell you that you may draw cartridges for the time, and the shivering guns go off at the double for some cottage or shingle hut, where the luncheon has been served under cover. The mulligatawny is distinctly medicinal; and, like Martin Chuzzlewit with his first cobbler at New York, you begin to feel yourself another man after the second glass of sherry. You own that those flannel-padded cases of block-tin in which the soups and stews will keep their warmth almost indefinitely, are among the most useful inventions of modern science. Never have you shown off your jovial powers to much greater advantage than in the conversation that accompanies the digestive pipe or cigar; and moreover, your shooting is cent per cent steadier than in the forenoon, as the rocketing pheasants discover to their cost.

But to go back to the picnic proper after our long parenthetical discussion on shooting-lunches. Picnics in Scotland may be delightful, as we have seen; but unquestionably the climate becomes more congenial to them to the southward, where the swelling air soothes us into a voluptuous listlessness which, nevertheless, is far from degenerating into torpor. On the contrary, the faculties should flash responsive to the sunshine, like the bright sparkle of still champagne; while the young

man's fancy, voluptuously stimulated, turns as lightly to thoughts of love as to mayonnaises and savoury jellies. The English rivers to the south of Tyne have seldom the wild beauty of the Scotch streams; yet they may have charms more winning if less impressive, and they associate themselves naturally with the romance of boating-parties. A boating picnic on the upper waters of Spey or Tay would almost infallibly land one, through shipwrecks, in the churchyards. On the sluggish English rivers you are safe enough from upsets-or were so, at least, before these days of the steam-launches, and the boats may be propelled with the minimum of action-" Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm❞— to the accompaniment of soft music in the plash of the oars. If the rivers are sluggish, they are none the less bewitching in the stillness of the summer day. Should you hush your voices and lie upon your oars, you listen to the hum of the bees and the chirping chorus of grasshoppers and field - crickets. Each twig and leaf of the oakboughs, bending under the foliage, is mirrored in the unruffled surface; the lolling rise of some over-gorged fish sends the circling ripples half across the stream; the blue-bodied dragon-flies, with wings grey-veined like the sails of a windmill, are flitting among the butterflies over the beds of water-lilies; the cattle are ruminating quietly in the lush meadow-grass, or switching their tails as they stand in the silent pools; you hear the roucoulement of ringdoves and wood-pigeons from the woods, and watch the antics of the lively squirrels playing hide-andseek behind the stems of the beeches. No wonder that artists, amateur and professional, love to camp out on these river-banks, filling their sketch