Search -
The Badminton magazine of sports and pastimes
The Badminton magazine of sports and pastimes Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: STALKING ON A ROSS-SHIRE GROUSE MOOR BY ARTHUR LAVINGTON A Muggy morning after a soaking wet night, and the mist lying low down on the hills ! Not a c... more »heerful morning for my last day in Eoss-shire. ' Well, Boss, is it any use going again to the west end for a deer—it is a bad day for spying, and we saw nothing on our ground yesterday'?' Old Boss, with his long nose and watery eye, is delightful; he has never been south of Inverness, and for twenty-six years has been keeper at this place, living in a little cottage by the river. I can trust him to any extent, and though he must know to a certainty when there is a chance of getting a salmon or a stag, no one is as keen as he is on the most unpromising days. Wo are great friends. ' I'm thinking Mr. Lavington would be going to the west end to-day, and Jimrnie could come with me, as it's too wet on the hill for the grouse. If Mr. Lavington will have his breakfast, me and Jimmie will be going now, and we can spy a " buttie " before Mr. Lavington comes.' Boss always addresses me like this, in the third person, and it was very confusing when we first met. ' All right then, I'll bring the lunch in the cart, and the rifle,' I said. ' And Mr. Lavingtou won't forget the cartridges ? ' says Boss— he always thinks I shall. An hour or so later I meet Boss and Jimmie at the end of the road, five miles from the house, and we three set out to walk to what we call the west end, which is the end of a long strip of grouse ground marching with a forest. The mist was just creeping along the hilltops; there was hardly a breath of air, but what little there was came from the east and was on our backs; we had to keep a line below the corries in consequence, and the first one, where I had a shot and missed last year, was...« less