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80 pages

English

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Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing many of these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

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Fiction

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Publié par	Read Books Ltd.
Date de parution	28 juin 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781528763226
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0350€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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WINTER AND ROUGH WEATHER
BY
W. G. M. DOBIE
With drawings by V. R. BALFOUR-BROWNE
HERE THEY COME!
To V. R. B.-B.
With warm embrace and graceful shrug
The courtly Frenchman well expresses
His thanks, nor looks nor feels a mug
Thereby: but it, one must confess, is
The silent Scot s unhappy fate
To be too inarticulate .
Yet surely I must loudly raise
My voice-although I fear the fact is
I ve none-in an attempt to praise
The arts which you so deftly practise:
Your art with pen and brush I knew ,
But other arts you practise too:
The art to use the glass with skill;
To follow up, with zeal untiring ,
The stag which you decide to kill ,
Giving your friend the fun of firing:
And, when his bullet passes wide ,
To turn his thoughts from suicide:
The art on Highland streams to throw
Bright salmon flies (procured from Malloch):
And oh-I had forgotten - oh ,
The art of the successful gralloch!
And-which your guests must value most -
The art to be a perfect host .
CONTENTS
W INTER AND R OUGH W EATHER
Winter in the North
C OLIN F ROM THE W ESTERN I SLES
An Old Man s Game
A C ALL TO THE N ORTH
The Modern Raiders
M IXED B AGS
The Ghost of the Hiker s Shorts
M AJOR AND M INOR A CCIDENTS
A Sporting Parson
A S ECOND S HOT AT THE P RESIDENT
Remorse
W INDFALLS
Depression
O RDEAL BY F IRE
To the Gentleman in H. Alken s Grouse Shooting
T HE A CCOMMODATING P HEASANT
Ballade of Tact
F IELD S PORTS AT A SHESTIEL AND A BBOTSFORD
Midwinter Madness
F LASH
Flash
C IVILISED S PORT
Unnatural History
H OURS S TOLEN FROM N IGHT
Flighting
G UNS , O LD AND N EW
A Shooting Diary
T HE H IGHLAND S TALKER IN K HAKI
Lovat Scouts
I NVITATIONS
Back to the Forest
A U SE FOR U SELESS L AND
The Captious Caper
T o F EED OR N OT TO F EED
Farewell to the Forest
T HE W HOLE R ESIDUE OF H IS M EANS AND E STATE
Last Instructions to a Clerk
G ROUSE
Grouse at Dawn
T HE D EER -S TALKER S E QUIPMENT
Anticipation
O NE C HRISTMAS H OLIDAY
Ballade of Wildfowling
T HE E ND AND THE B EGINNING
In Reply to an Invitation
WINTER AND ROUGH WEATHER
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
T HUS did Amiens extol life in the Forest of Arden, in a song which still echoes in the hearts of country dwellers. A cynic might observe that the Duke and his friends returned to the envious court without hesitation when an opportunity came: and, bearing in mind the primitive conditions of their existence in exile, who would blame them? To us, possessed of many aids to comfort unknown to the Duke and his suite, the churlish chiding of the winter s wind is less of an enemy and more of an exhilarating tonic. Further, to such as are addicted to wildfowling, it offers a suitable opportunity of pursuing their chilly sport.
Possibly only wildfowlers welcome the wildest of winter storms. A high wind adds to the excitement of a late grouse-drive, when it needs a man to ca them doun : it increases the anxiety of the host and of his keeper and the enjoyment of his guests when partridges come swerving across the hedges, or when every pheasant that hurtles high overhead looks as though the feathers were all being blown out of his tail -a bird to please Allan Quatermain. But when the B.B.C. issues its solemn warning to shipping, when the glass falls low as the gale rises high, when slates and chimney-pots begin to clatter down in city streets, and trees groan and rock in country woodlands, only madmen and wildfowlers (perhaps the terms are synonymous) regard the weather with complete approval.
However keen a man may be-and he must be keen, or give up wildfowling altogether-it requires some little effort of will to face the storm at its worst, just at that hour when the fireside chair looks most attractive: to wait, in the wind and the rain, as darkness falls, for ducks which may, or may not, flight to a particular area of flooded meadow: or to ambush grey geese as they fly from their feeding-grounds to the estuary. Even greater will-power is required for early morning wildfowling. Bed is warm and comfortable: outside is pitch darkness, a gust dashes hail against the window. . . . Is it worth while to face the beastliness of such weather on the chance of a shot at geese on the foreshore or at ducks returning to the loch? A keen wildfowler will take the chance: with groans and curses, it may be, but when the germ of wildfowling has entered his system, howling gales and lashing rain convey to him a promise of the sport he loves.
And what sport it can be! There will be occasions, many occasions, of disappointment: hours of acute discomfort, and no shot: but if he is hardy and persistent the day and the hour will come when he will succeed beyond his wildest dreams,-when geese, hundreds of geese, battling against the storm, will pass near him and he will shoot straight: or when all the ducks in the country will be driven to shelter near his ambush.
Apart from wildfowling, little serious shooting can be attempted in the wildest of winter weather. After the tenants of deer-forests have migrated south, stalkers turn their attention to such hind-shooting as may be necessary, and a miserably cold undertaking it can be. A storm among mountains is a storm indeed, fiercer and more intense than in the low country. In the lowlands few folk are out with the gun in weather conditions which involve too acute discomfort. The man of leisure does not shoot then: why should he? If Monday be stormy, he can be out on Tuesday or on Wednesday.
He who is engaged in some profession or business, however, can spare perhaps only one day, or even one afternoon, in a week: and, though deep depressions approach from Iceland, go he must, if only to avoid disappointing the spaniel. On a day of soaking rain, indeed, his dog is likely to be the only company he will have.
If you are impelled to shoot in such conditions, you will find a certain satisfaction in the madness: in splashing through sodden meadows, with a very fair chance of seeing, if not shooting, scores of snipe: in watching your spaniel, eager and enthusiastic in spite of the weather, bustling down a hedgerow, bolting a rabbit here, flushing a cock-pheasant there. And when the short winter afternoon is done; when, bathed and changed and fed and pleasantly tired, you draw up an armchair to the fire where the dog (allowed, on such occasions, to dry himself indoors) lies on the rug, his head down between his paws, motionless lest any movement by him should remind you of his presence there and hasten his return to the kennel,-you realise that winter and rough weather are not, under such circumstances, vindictive enemies.
WINTER IN THE NORTH
When ever-deeper snowdrifts pile
And winter tempests howl and thunder
O er Guisachan and Fasnakyle ,
Does Duncan, in the glen, I wonder ,
Appreciate the spell of it ,
The solemn grandeur? Deil a bit!
We welcome every silence zone,
While one of Duncan s keenest joys is
-Among the mountains and alone-
To introduce the city s noises ,
And hear that slogan of distress-
Before the news-one S O S.
In days of plenty he would greet
His cronie, Roderick (or Roddy )
And o er a fire of glowing peat
Concoct and sample whisky-toddy:
Weak, weak the toddy one dare mix
With usquebaugh at twelve-and-six!
And so instead, their chairs are set
Where Duncan s hearth-fire flickers brightly
And where his four-valve superhet
Repeats-with variations-nightly
The B.B.C. s selected news
Or weighty efforts to amuse .
When snow clouds muster overhead
And Roddy starts for home and faces
The storm, he envies us who tread
On Hore-Belisha s crossing-places:
While I keep dreaming of that pass
Down Affaric and through Strath Glass .
COLIN FROM THE WESTERN ISLES
C OLIN first came to the forest as a gillie, returning after each stalking season to his father s croft in one of the Western Isles. Nominally he is a gillie still: but one year when a stalker was laid up, Colin was sent out as deputy, and acquitted himself so nobly that, to his great delight and to the great delight of guests who take the hill under his guidance, the experiment has been repeated.
His age I would put at twenty-eight: a great, good-natured giant of a man. Slow in speech, for he thinks in Gaelic and translates, but quick and bold in action, he has only one fault as a stalker, and that fault a lovable one,-his excessive keenness. Desperately anxious that, when under his charge, you should kill a big stag, he gravely answers your morning salutations, then seizes your rifle and starts off as if the devil pursued him. Along the level or up the steepest slope of a 3,000-feet mountain, his long stride devours the miles, while you pant along in his wake, endeavouring at least to keep him in sight. And in the near presence of deer his excitement-though he strives to conceal it-might possibly upset a beginner. When waiting for a stag to rise, and shivering with cold, I have glanced at Colin lying in the peat-hag beside me, his eyes, bright with excitement, fixed on the deer, beads of perspiration on his forehead.
If you miss, how anxious he is to assume all blame and responsibility, to assure you that there was some fault in his method of approach, and that you did not get a fair chan