66 which even culture does not always secure. For it is an art beyond art The art itself is nature. - interjection.) How many a time have I sat here with other companions than Oscar! Does Frank, I wonder, yet remember, as he listens to the long wash of Australian seas, and breathes in con- The winter sun had set before my last verse seasons, how we parted beside this shot was fired, and by the time I reached very stone (enormous boulder deposited my friend's farm the crescent moon was by the Deluge or other primeval force), up, and the stars were strewn thickly and how he repeated to me the words of across the blue-black vault. I have ever St. John (Jane Eyre had been newly pub- prized that walk home through the winlished), in which an austere patriot's pas- ter twilight. Shooting, as presently pursion for his fatherland finds memorable sued, is, it must be confessed, a someutterance?" And I shall see it again," what barbarous sport, though to say he said, aloud, "in dreams, when I sleep gravely that all who practise it are as vile by the Ganges; and again, in a more re- as the vilest of Roman emperors is a little mote hour, when another slumber over- bit of an exaggeration. To assist at a comes me, on the shore of a darker battue of pheasants is hardly so criminal stream." But with even more tragic as to assist at a battue of Christians: directness is thine honest, kindly, saga- but, even when practised moderately and cious face trustiest of servants, and wisely, the excitement of the chase is apt steadiest of friends revived by the asso- to render one insensible for the time beciations of the spot. In all my wandering to the finer influences of nature. ings in this world I have never met a man so finely simple, so utterly unselfish, so unostentatious in the manifestation, yet so constant in the fidelity of his friendship. The old family servant is now rarely met with; the nervous anxiety to move on" has affected those who serve as well as those they serve, and the old feudal relationship, with its kindly pieties, has given place to the fierce jealousies between employers and employed, which are growing every day more bitter and less capable of peaceful appeasement. Charles came to us when a boy, and left us only when death took him away. During these thirty years he had passed into our life and grown one of ourselves. He had taught us lads to ride, and shoot, and tell the truth; he had helped to send us away into the great world that lay behind his peaceful hills; he had been the first to welcome us back when we returned in triumph or defeat, as the case might be; and he was always the same-homely, upright, ingenuous, candid, incorruptible. When I think of him now I involuntarily recall some antique heroic model; the petty tumults of modern life, the complex passions of modern civilization, had not affected the large simplicity of his nature. There was that lofty repose about this plain, their steely diamond-like glitter only honest, homely, awkward, parish-bred man which makes statues of the Apollo and the Antinous inimitable. He was one of nature's noblemen-one of the men in whom she has secretly implanted the fine instinct of good-breeding, and the native sweetness and gentleness, which cannot be bought with money, and The walk home puts all this right. As mocking our curiosity. To me at least trust ourselves may we not?-with in the Exchange at Peelboro'. Donald reasonable confidence to the power which has taught children to laugh and prattle and win their way to the flintiest hearts among us? in his heart was in favour of the young Laird. A bit of a sportsman himself, he had no notion of allowing grouse and partridges to be cleared out of the country. But the rest, he admitted, were mad as March hares. Their was a good deal of method in their madness, however. I could not help being struck by the complete and profound selfishness which ap newly roused to the value of its political privileges, - -no imperial interest, no conceptions of national duty, seeming to have any place in the minds of electors, who were ready to return any candidate, whatever his politics might be, who would promise to vote against hypothec and the game laws. A somewhat portentous political phenomenon truly. As next day was market day at Peelboro', Donald proposed that I should accompany him to that odoriferous burgh, which was then to add to its other attractions - vehemently engaged in selecting a Member to represent it in the Par-peared to animate a class which had been liament of the country. Good old Sir Andrew, whose convivial qualities had recommended him for half a century to the continued confidence of the electors, had gone over to a majority greater even than that which supports Mr. Gladstone.* Young Sir Andrew was in the field; but he was not to be allowed to walk the course; a middle-aged Radical Professor, addicted to snuff and spectacles, had But on all that happened at Peelboro' come down from the Metropolis, and on that day and on many other days begone to the front in really gallant style. fore the election came off, this is not the He was ready to introduce any number place to enlarge. Suffice it to say that of Bills into the House: a Bill to assist we witnessed some very lively scenes, the consumption of excisable liquors; a that we dined with my genial friend the Bill to permit the tenant of land to break Provost, who had with characteristic imany contract into which he might have partiality presided at the meetings of both entered, if he found it convenient or prof- candidates with the electors, and canitable to do so; a Bill for the abolition didly admitted that a great deal could be of the game laws and the extinction of said for either; and that on our way game; a Bill to compel landlords to turn home we arrived at the opinion that it sheep-runs into arable farms, and deer- was unnecessary to encourage by artififorests into parks for the people; and social means the consumption of excisable on. These revolutionary propositions had excited much enthusiasm in the community, and Duncan informed me that his brother farmers had actually adopted the Professor as an eminently eligible candidate before it was accidentally discovered that he had never heard of "hypothec." The fall of an explosive rocket could not have caused more panic among his supporters than when, in answer to Dirty Davie's familiar enquiry (Dirty Davie was a local politician of note), "Fat think ye of hypothēc, man?" the candidate incautiously admitted that he had no thoughts whatever. An effort was made to silence Davie, who was advised to "go to bed," "to wash his face," and to undertake various other unusual and unpalatable operations; but Davie stuck to his text, and by-and-by the meeting came round to Davie's stand-point, and then adjourned amid profound agitation, as they do in France. Donald was on his way to attend a gathering of farmers which had been specially convened to meet that morning This was written before the General Election. liquors in Peelboro' and its vicinity. Donald was anxious that I should stay another day with him. There was a hillloch haunted by wild geese and swans, where a shot might be got of a moonlight night; but my fisher-friends had engaged to meet me on the Thursday, and I had undertaken to secure some skins of seabirds for old Tom Purdie, the taxidermist, so I drove back to my comfortable quarters at "The Mermaid," where I was welcomed by my comely landlady and her comelier daughter- mater pulchra, filia pulchrior. John and Peter came up to the inn in the course of the evening to tell me that the boat was in readiness for our expedition, and to get some charges of powder and shot for Peter's old duckgun, a tremendously "hard-hitter," as I once learned from painful experience. It nearly knocked me down, and my shoulder was blue for a month. But Peter knows how to humour the monster, and in his hands it has killed its bird at a hundred yards. Peter and John are waiting for me at the pier, and we push off, and row leisurely down the middle channel of the stream. Nothing can rival the clear crisp | birds that he does not want) this is as transparent charm of the atmosphere on good a day as any. such a morning.. The thermometer was The birds that I am seeking for my a great many degrees below the freezing taxidermist friend belong to the noble point during the night, and even now it and ancient family of divers. The Great marks two or three degrees of frost. But Auk, I presume, has been finally hunted there is not the faintest breath of wind; out of this evil world. Nothing is left of every twig, every blade of grass might him except his skin, and of skins it aphave been cut out of stone; they are all as pears that only about seventy in all have statuesque as the inmates of the enchant- been preserved. Mr. Gray's really paed palace before the prince came. That thetic account (pathetic on account of its speechless, motionless, spell-bound crea- anxious exactness) of all that remains to tion lighted up with such a flood of win- us of the Great Auk, will be found in a ter sunshine, might become really "un- foot-note. The extermination of the canny" to us, were it not for the birds, Red Indian of the sea, as we may call who, in spite of the cold, are as lively as him, is certainly a curious fact, and one ever. As we drift down the stream we that perhaps justifies the almost exceshear the sparrows chirping boisterously sive interest that has been felt in the forin the leafless hedges along the banks; tunes and misfortunes of this ungainly and quietly as we move, immense flocks bird by naturalists and others. But the of ducks are constantly rising ahead of Black-throated, the Great Northern, and us, out of shot; rising and circling over- the Red-throated Divers are still comhead, and making the upper air vocal mon on our coasts, although their numwith their wings. Now we reach the barbers of late years have shown a sensible of the river, where even on this preter- diminution. The loon is beyond quesnaturally calm morning there is a line of tion a noble bird. There is a magnificent white breakers, among which black sco- energy and force of movement about him ters are diving with a zest which makes which impress the imagination. He us (or at least one of us, for my fisher- moves through the water as the eagle friends, though sea-bred and seafaring moves through the air. I never tried to people, curiously enough cannot swim) eat one, but I fancy he must be nearly jealous of their thick feathers and water-all muscle. There is not an ounce of proof coats, and we have to steer the boat with some caution through the surf. This noble bay, whose grand curve, like a bent bow at its utmost tension, attracts the admiration of the dullest, is the hunting ground for which we are bound. The day is too still to enable us to do much among the ducks; the numerous parties of mallards, widgeon, teal, and long-tailed ducks, which are scattered about in every direction, invariably rising before we are within shot. The prime weather for duck-shooting is the weather when, with a good stiff frost, such as we have to-day, a strong breeze blows from the land, rippling the surface of the water, and whitening the ridges of the swell. Then running back and forward along the coast, under a mere scrap of brown sail, we fall upon the ducks unexpectedly, and as they commonly rise into the wind (that is, in the direction of the boat, which of course has the wind more or less behind it), there is leisure for a deliberate shot; and I have often seen a great number of various kinds killed on such a morning. But it is no use to complain; and for most of the birds I want (and no sportsman will kill superfluous fat upon him. He is an athlete who is always in training. His speed under water is almost incredible. He sinks quite leisurely as you approach within shot; a minute elapses, and then he reappears at the other side of the bay, having changed his course, moreover, Denmark Germany Germany France. United Kingdom Denmark Total Germany Denmark Holland SKINS. . 20 Russia 2 .7 (or 8?) Belgium Portugal 3 2 I 2 5 United States. . 41 2 when out of sight, with the view of putting you off the scent. This is true more particularly of the Great Northern Diver; the Red-throated is a less powerful bird, and is more easily circumvented.* The bay of Ury is a favourite resort of the loon; but to-day it does not seem at first as if we were to succeed in sighting him. As we row leisurely along the coast, I scan the whole breadth of the bay with my glass. That is a brown skua in the midst of a shrieking assemblage of gulls; that is a cormorant hard at work among the whiting; that is a black guillemot in its winter plumage; these are parties of the graceful Northern Hareld who are feeding greedily upon the tiny bivalves at the bottom; † Mr. Gray picturesquely describes the peculiar cry of the Red-throated Diver:-"Among rustic people, the ordinary note of the Red-throated Diver is said to portend rain; in some districts, indeed, the bird is known by the name of rain goose. I have oftener than once had an opportunity of hearing the birds calling at nightfall in the Outer Hebrides. On the 1st of August, 1870, I witnessed a curious scene at Lochmaddy, in the island of North Uist, about nine o'clock in the evening. The air was remarkably still and sultry, and frequent peals of thunder in the distance were the only sounds that for a time broke upon the irksome quiet that otherwise prevailed. At length the thunder, on becoming louder, seemed to waken up the divers on various lochs within sight of where I stood, and first one pair, then another, rose high into the air, and flew round in circles, until there must have been twenty or thirty in all. After a time, they settled in one of the salt creeks about half a mile to the eastward, and then there arose a wild and unearthly noise from the birds, which I cannot describe. It is, in fact, a sound which no one can ever forget after once hearing it, especially in these Hebridean solitudes, where it acquires its full emphasis. Next morning, about four o'clock, while bowling along towards the Sound of Benbecula in the face of a raincloud such as I wish never to see again, several of the birds passed us overhead at a considerable height, uttering the same cries, which might be likened to a person in despair making a last shout for help when no help is near.' Mr. Graham (he must really be got to print his Birds of Iona and Mull; it would be as great a success as St. John's Wild Sports of the Highlands) has a delightful account of the Northern Hareld at page 389 of Mr. Gray's volume: "The Long-tailed Duck comes to Iona in the early part of November, when there appears a small flock of a dozen or so which takes up its station off the northern coast of the island. These are generally reinforced during the frosts and severe weather of December and January by fresh arrivals which are driven in from the sea, and from their more unsheltered haunts, till at last very great numbers are assembled in the bay. Towards the end of March this large flock begins to break up into pairs and small parties; many go away; and when the weather keeps fine they make long excursions, and for days the bay is quite deserted. A change of weather, however, will still bring them back, and a smart gale would assemble a considerable flock of them, and this as late as the second week in April; but after this time you see them no more. Thus we have them with us about four months: they arrive with the first frown of winter, and depart with the earliest blink of summer sun. The Northern Hareld brings ice and snow and storms upon its wings; but as soon as winter, with his tempestuous rage, rolls unwillingly back before the smile of advancing spring to his Polar dominions, the bird follows in his train; for no creature revels more amidst the gloom and rage and horrors of winter than the ice duck. The cry of this bird is very remarkable, and has obtained and that is why, that is an Eider drake, and one of the birds that Tom has specially commissioned me to secure. He is floating calmly and majestically on the surface; there are one or two attendant grey-brown Eider ducks beside him; he has come from the far North, where it is high treason to molest him, and it goes against the grain to shoot the great handsome simple bird now, when he has trusted himself to our hospitality. So I hand him over to Peter, who has no scruples on the subject, and who quickly gets him on board. Just as we are examining his plumage (lying quietly on our oars), a long shapely neck rises out of the water beside the boat, and a grave, steady eye is fixed enquiringly upon us. Before the guns can be pointed at him, he has disappeared as silently as he had risen, and then John and Peter set themselves to their oars, for they know that they have work enough cut out for them. It is the Great Northern Diver himself, and it takes us well-nigh an hour before we for it the Gaelic name of Lach Bhinn, or the musical duck, which is most appropriate; for when the voices of a number are heard in concert, rising and falling, borne along upon the breeze between the rollings of the surf, the effect is musical, wild, and startling. The united cry of a large flock sounds very like bagpipes at a distance, but the note of a single bird when heard very near is certainly not so agreeable. On one occasion I took great pains to learn the note, and the following words are the nearest approach that can be given of it in writing: it articulates them very distinctly, though in a musical bugle-like tone: -'Our, o, u, ah! our, o, u, ah!' Sometimes the note seems to break down in the middle, and the bird gets no further than our, or ower, which it runs over several times, but then, as with an effort, the whole cry is completed loud and clear, and repeated several times, as if in triumph. At this time they were busily feeding, diving in very deep I water on a sand bottom, and calling to one another when they rose to the surface. I never saw these ducks come very near the shore; perhaps this is partly owing to the bay which they frequent having shores which they could not approach easily, as there is usually a heavy surf breaking upon them. I have frequently watched them at night, to see if they would come into any of the creeks, but they never did; on the contrary, after dusk they would often leave the bay; the whole of them would fly off simultaneously in the direction of the mainland of Mull, as if they were bound for some well-known feeding ground. Í have often seen them actively feeding in the day-time, though more generally they are floating about at rest or diverting themselves. They are of a very lively and restless disposition, continually rising on the wing, flying round and round in circles, chasing one another, hurrying along the surface, half-flying, half-swimming, and accompanying all these gambols with their curious cries. When the storms are at their loudest, and the waves running mountains high, then their glee seems to reach its highest pitch, and they appear thoroughly to enjoy the confusion. When watching them on one of these occasions, I had to take shelter under a rock from a dreadful blast, accompanied by very heavy snow, which in a moment blotted out the whole landscape; everything was enveloped in a shroud of mist and driving sleet; but from the midst of the intense gloom there arose the triumphant song of these wild creatures rising above the uproar of the elements; and when the mist lifted, I beheld the whole flock careering about the bay as if mad with delight." again succeed in getting him within shot. Egean. How the hero seeks his bride; Later on, we are fortunate enough to se- how he finds her, like Nausicaa, at the cure another Great Northern, besides washing-tub; how he woos her with soft two or three of the Red-throated variety; speeches and honeyed words; how she, and then we hoist our sail, and running till that moment fancy free, blushes and rapidly home before the evening breeze falters, and will not bid him to leave her; which is rippling the water, reach the pier how the craft of love proves stronger from which we had started in the morn- than the craft of age; - all this we had ing, just in time to see the stars come heard before, in language which none of out. Our bag is not a large one; it us, the busiest or the laziest, ever quite might indeed have been indefinitely in- forget. But somehow the narrative of the creased, had we chosen to slaughter use- old story-teller does not lose its charm less, innocent birds, as I have known when transplanted to a more barren soil, Christian gentlemen do; but a bag which and translated into a harsher tongue. contains a Northern Diver and an Eider Nay, it is brought even nearer to us when drake will not be sneered at by any hon- we find that it has all happened over est naturalist. again in that "North countrie" to which we belong, and to that race which is akin to our own. Have you time (ere I put away my pen) to listen to some lines from Mr. Weatherly's really admirable version of the wooing of Kalla by the Son of the Sun-god? This is how it happened. The post-bag has arrived during my absence, and the table is littered with the accumulated letters and papers of the past week. Having recovered from the pleasant drowsiness which after a winter day spent on the sea is apt to overtake one at an early period of the evening, I read my letters, glance at the newspapers, and finally settle myself to the perusal of a privately printed translation of the recently discovered or recently reconstructed Lap epic, Peivash Parneh, which the author has forwarded to me through that unique institution of our age the book-post. As a rule the Sagas are rather dry reading; but this episode of the wooing and winning of Kalla is as seductive as a romance. Whether it is the merit of the story itself, or of the peculiar metre which Mr. Weatherly has adopted, or of the circumstances in which I am privileged to read it, I do not exactly know; but the fascination of the narrative is undeniable. The environment certainly may have something to do with it. The book is keen with the keenness of that Northern Sea from which I have newly returned, and which at this moment is lying in a flood of moonlight outside the window. It is all about the north wind, and the aurora, and the long-haired Vikings, who came down upon these shores in their handy little craft, and helped to make us the hardy sailors we have grown. It belongs characteristically to the Mare Tenebrosum, and yet it is reminiscent (if there be such a word in the dictionary) of earlier story of stories that wandering tribes had listened to as they sat round the watch-fires they had kindled on the shores of the Hellespont and the Peivash Parneh: the Sons of the Sun-God. Translated by Frederick E. Weatherly, B.A., Author of "Muriel, and other Poems," 1873. Peiwar, the Son of the Sun-god, while following the reindeer and the white bear to their haunts in the North, hears of the land of Kalewala, and of the beautiful maiden Kalla: A tale is told of the maiden, Twinkling with tin. And friendly is Kalewa's fireside, Sinketh the netstone. |