SHORTLY after the midnight of Sunday, December 28th, 1879, the writer of this paper left his house and struggled down to the north shore of the Firth of Cromarty. That was a memorable day in the history of Scotland. A few hours before the bridge over the Tay had gone down, and with it a train and nearly eighty passengers. We in the North knew nothing of the great disaster till the Monday evening, but the gale which was then blowing itself out perforce received our earnest attention. It did not do so much harm to woods in Ross-shire as in the south of Scotland, but yet it left a mark in some districts in the former county which it will take many years to hide.

All day we had been watching the trees, and their different behaviour under the strain they were put to. Those standing alone or in thin plantations fared as a rule the best. All their lives they had been more or less exposed to the wind, and they had learnt to brace themselves up, as it were, before it; their roots went deep, and the sick and weakly had been weeded out long ago. It was in the great fir-woods that the chief harm was done. On the Saturday the trees had been standing, serene in their dark winter beauty; then the wind came, and in a few hours-often in a few minutes the slow, patient, unceasing growth of fifty or a hundred years was undone. The blast was on the woods, and over them, and away; you

but

could follow its track, you could mark the exact extent of its greatest force by the wreck it left behind, a confused ruin of broken and fallen trees, so thick and dense and twisted, that neither man nor beastunless it was a rabbit or a hare-could force a way through it. Out in the unsheltered open there was something

frightful in the power of the wind; it cut the breath, and almost seemed as if it would suffocate those who faced it.

On the eastern side of the " policies' of the old house of Tarbert there is a rounded little cape, cut through in places by ditches into which the tide runs when it is full. In bygone days this promontory was a famous stand for wild-fowl, and many ducks and brent geese have met their deaths when flying over it. Many years ago Mr. Hay Mackenzie of Cromarty (the father of the late Duchess of Sutherland) had a wooden shelter built at the furthest point, and though nothing now remains of it but the water-worn ends of some piles the place is still called the Hunting House. There the owner of Tarbert with his friends used to sit in hiding, and in stormy weather have wonderful sport with the wild-fowl. The keeper who used to be with them on these occasions is still alive-a very old man ; and he has often told us how he would come back, after spending the afternoon in moving the fowl which lay out on the water, and find them counting up a bag of eighty or a hundred geese and ducks. In those days--forty or fifty years ago there was perhaps no better place for this kind of sport than the Cromarty Firth. Enterprising farmers had not done much in draining their lands, and a great deal of ground which now grows sweet food for sheep and cattle, both on the hills and in the low country, then gave secure breedingplaces for ducks. Small fowling-pieces were not common, and the sonorous boom of the punt-gun was never heard. Now a flock of a thousand, or perhaps fifteen hundred brent, occupy the Firth during their season; then the handsome white-ringed birds arrived in immense flocks in the early autumn,

and found ample food and security till far on into the spring. They came in countless thousands. The old keeper aforesaid has often told us how he has seen them stretch in one long dense unbroken mass from Tarbert Point to Ballintrain pier, a distance of between two and three miles; and the statement can easily be verified by many old inhabitants of the district. In those days the people who lived at Saltburn, a straggling village close to the sea, used often to be kept from their sleep at night by the uproar the geese made,any one who has heard the honking caused by a few hundred brent will understand this-and used to try and drive them further out into the bay by firing guns. It is said that on one

such occasion an inhabitant of this village went down with his weapon to the shore in order to fleyte them, and when the ancient piece missed fire he remained with it at the present till his wife came with a red hot peat, and so started the reluctant charge, which yet caused the death of six geese. Whether this story be true or not, it is the fact that the few men who owned guns did not think it worth their while to fire them off unless they could make pretty sure of killing three or four at the shot. In much later days an old servant at Tarbert (a great friend of ours) would sometimes have a hundred geese and ducks hanging in and about his house at the same time--the result of a week's work for his small gun.

Such days are over now. The great flocks which used to stream into the Firth from the north go elsewhere, to shallow tidal waters and lonely marshes as yet unknown to the punt-gun and the flight-shooter, and the small remnant which is left is persecuted both by day and night. A few men on these northern waters earn a very hard and precarious living by shooting for the market. They are dried-up, weather-beaten folk, cunning in their craft, and probably finding in the freedom and excitement of the work some recompense for its hardships and scanty returns. At all

best.

hours of the night and morning-the time for the start depending on the tide the puntsman launches his little craft. Hard frosty weather suits him If it is so hard that the Firth is full of floating ice so much the better for his chance of a heavy shot; but the ice itself is an enemy, and will soon saw through his light planking if he let it work against him. And the cold too is an enemy. A man on shore can in very adverse circumstances make shift to warm himself, he can move about, and stamp, and beat his chest after the fashion of a cabman. But little of this is possible in a punt, one good kick would go through the thin timbers; and if, as is often the case, the man has to lie flat on his chest, waiting for birds to shift or the tide to rise, for a couple of hours or so, he suffers terribly from the cold. Most of the men are very poor, and their clothing shows their poverty. and then you will see such a one go ashore, and light a small furze-bush to get a momentary touch of warmth-a pinched, blue-faced man. Perhaps he has had no luck that day; perhaps he has missed the chance of a heavy shot owing to his birds being disturbed by some shore-shooter; and now he has a long row against wind and tide before he gets home.

Now

It is with this shore-shooter, however, that we have to do; and this night-this 29th of December-was one well suited to his purpose. Many people, whose knowledge of flight-shooting is theoretical, imagine that a bright starlight or moonlight night would be the most likely one for sport. Such weather is, however, useless; you cannot see birds, even when in great numbers and quite close to you, if they have a clear starry sky as a background. Many a time have we proved this. The clouds we relied on at starting have faded or melted away, the wind has gone down, and the stars have come thickly out; the tide is an hour on the ebb, and the time for sport, had the night kept good, is close at hand. But the disgusted fowler well

means.

ears.

knows what the change of weather There is a hissing sound, ever growing more and more distinct, which makes the retriever sit up and cock his There is the noise of many wings. They come towards him, they stream over him; he knows that some scores of birds are flying within forty or fifty yards of his head. But for all the good they are to him they might be in Egypt. The light of a star may be cut off for the hundredth part of a second, but that is all; he sees nothing. What is wanted is a full tide at the ebb, enough moon to shoot by—and it is wonderful how little of this is necessary a cloudy sky, and, above all, wind, there can hardly be too much wind. Let it blow so that in forcing his way to his post he has almost to creep along the ground, and it is well. The fowl are not so wary in such weather; they fly much lower, and as they fly against it they fly slower.

That night there was abundance of wind. It roared through the old beeches along the Tarbert shore, their branches creaking and groaning in dismal chorus. Many storms had they seen, but few so bad as this; for some it was the last storm, and these lay quiet at the feet of their companions. The bits of seaweed which high tides had lapped round the wires of fences which ran into the sea stood out at right angles, and flapped and cracked like so many small banners. But it was when the shelter of the woods was left, and the open carse gained, that the full power of the gale was felt. The little hut, which in bad weather had given shelter to many a fowler, had been picked up and carried away by the wind as if it had been an old newspaper; the thin bent grass lay almost flat on the ground, and at times a man had to crouch down and put his head out, and struggle to hold his place, almost as though a mortal enemy had a hand upon his throat. The moon was full, but much obscured by drift.

It was often rather eerie down by the shore on those winter nights; but

such a storm as this acted in some sense as a companion, as a creature to grapple with, and its furious buffetings drowned all uncanny sounds. Sometimes there would be company at the point; a flash here and there would show that some one else was keen enough to give up his night's rest for the chance of sport. But the shooting grew year by year more precarious, and we often had the whole place to ourselves. It was on a calm night, with a half or quarter moon, that a sense of loneliness or uncanniness used to steal over one. The Firth was then full of sounds. Most of them, of course, we knew the cause of. Far out on the deep water lay the geese, and they as a rule knew better than to run the gauntlet of the point; they kept up the continual clamour which Colonel Hawker has well compared to the noise made by a pack of hounds. Now and then a heron would come over, noiselessly working his way seawards, and only betraying himself by a harsh half human scream when he detected the watcher crouched below him. Then there was the sharp whistle of widgeon, the satisfied quack of the mallards, and often the querulous noise made by gulls quarrelling over some dainty they had discovered; gulls seldom seem to sleep. These were all familiar sounds; but sometimes there were others to which we never found a clue. Sometimes they were real; sometimes we were not sure that an intently straining ear had not deceived us; once or twice it seemed as if some one close at hand had called out our name. There were wild stories in the district of men who had gone out on to the flats to shoot, and who living or dead had never been seen again. We were not able to make much out of these tales; but there were some soft places in the sands, and if an unwary person got into one of them it might go hard with him. We knew most intimately all the sands in the neighbourhood of the point; but few cared to follow out the tide very far, for when so much feeding-ground was un

covered the birds settled on it and stopped flying. Yet now and then,two or three times a year-when the spirit of wandering was over one and the thought of bed seemed more than usually hollow, we used to venture out, wading the shallow streams which ran through the mud, and keeping cautiously on the edge of the tide. It was at such times,-sitting perhaps a mile away from the solid land-that the mysterious sounds, half heard, half perhaps imagined, laid most hold of

one.

As the tide goes swiftly out, so it comes in. What would the morning show? Or, a few paces further will carry you into a quicksand, in whose cold and never seen embraces rest the remains of the long lost men. And then an almost irresistible impulse would urge one on to see if such a thing was there. Sight too would play strange pranks. Many and many a time have we turned sharply round, expecting to meet face to face some man, when there was nothing there. It is a common thing when grouse-driving to mistake for a moment a bee, or even a midge, out of the line of sight for a bird; and so perhaps was it here, some shadow, seen in a side focus, caused the deception. But at times we used to feel that we wanted but very little of another sense, which would enable us to see strange things, -the images of men, now long dead and forgotten, stalking in silence over the flats.

None but those who are accustomed to be out alone at night know how such thoughts rise. It can hardly be called nervousness; we were not really frightened even at the eeriest times, for night after night, year after year, we used to wander about alone among the birds and spirits. Once, every night for a month we watched in the great pine-woods, a few miles to the east,it is needless now to say what forwith a companion who was stationed half a mile or so away. It was a curious way of spending a March night, sitting under a tree in the huge, solemn, dark wood. Now and then, if

the wind was right, a deer would come up quite close, only showing his presence by the start he gave when he found us out, and what a start would we then give! On quiet nights the cracking of a fir-cone was as alarming as a gunshot would be in the day; you would almost think you could hear the sap as it crept up inside the bark. That watching also we got to like; and on the night we gave it up the harm we had tried to prevent was done. Some one had been watching us!

As a rule a sportsman may take great liberties with himself without being much the worse. No man was ever harmed by wet feet on a moor, though if he comes home and contemplates them for an hour over a gunroom fire he may be reminded of the indiscretion. A deerstalker has to put up with great exposure and temporary discomfort, but he is rarely the worse for it. He may have to run at the top of his speed for two or three miles along a rough hill-side to cut off a stag he has wounded or started, or in some way made a mistake with, and he arrives at his post as hot as a man can be. The deer are not in sight, and have to be waited for in the best position for the shot, not for the comfort of the shooter. The place is high up-two thousand feet up, perhaps, among lichen and rocks and great patches of snow; it is October, and an east wind blows upon the little company of three which seems to cut into their very hearts; finally a snow-shower comes on, as it were a winding sheet. We have spent a couple of hours or more in such a position, teeth chattering, body shaking, fingers benumbed. If the stag judiciously wait for an hour he is probably missed; the above three phenomena do not promote good rifle-shooting. rifle-shooting. Very likely the stag never comes at all: he was suspicious and uneasy, and preferred to take an unusual pass; and so disappointment is added to the other discomforts. But such a wait has never made us ill, nor have we ever seen a stalker who was the worse for it; stalkers very seldom

have colds in any form. And we have more than once found that such a course of treatment, extreme as it may seem was the best cure for an incipient cough or sore throat. There is a reason for what some may think a foolish or exaggerated statement. The air on this high ground is absolutely pure; there are no germs of anything foul in it; no decaying vegetation or rotten wood, or filthy refuse is up here. Diana is kind to the deerstalker; she is mindful perhaps of the sunny days when she and her maidens followed the great stags of Pindus or Eremanthus, and so takes care of her rough children in the north fighting away under their gray skies.

But from deer-stalking to duckshooting there is a great drop. Let no one think that exposure on high ground is the same as within a few feet of the sea. Let a man so think, —let him get wet to the skin and lie for a couple of hours on a mud flat with a north wind blowing through him-we will leave out the snow--and for good or for evil he will not trouble this world much longer.

For this night-work a man should be warmly clad, or he should stop at home. He must be able to sit from say midnight to 4 A.M. on a cold night in January, when a gale of wind is blowing, on any given stone without freezing to it. If he cannot do this there must be something wrong, either with his constitution or his garments.

The reward for all this exposure and hard work was often a very poor one; and sometimes a man, after watching on the mud for three or four hours, had to tramp home with nothing but the consciousness of having deserved better things. Once, and once only, did we get fairly in among the geese with a small gun. We had devoted a long day to them, a day of rain and wind and cold incredible; and towards nightfall the

chance of success seemed small. They were sitting, the brent-on a high patch of mud, perhaps one hundred and fifty yards from the bank behind which we lay, and as the tide was going out there was little chance of their coming in nearer. As a forlorn hope we determined to carry them by storm. We got over the bank and made at them as hard as we could go. Whether it was our sudden appearance, or the confusion caused by the wind, or whether they felt sorry for all the trouble they had so often given, it is impossible to say; but never shall we forget the astonishment, the almost awe we felt, when we found ourselves with a loaded gun in our hands within fifty yards of perhaps a thousand geese! They got up in wild disarray, and went honking out to sea. Five, however, stayed behind; and those five geese, with five ducks and some coots, represented the best bag we ever made in the Cromarty Firth.

That

When the tide got very far out, it was time for the duck-shooter to make for home and what sleep might remain for him; but sometimes he was driven there, when all other things were promising, by the loss of the moon. was a most provoking conclusion. Little by little the light would go; the flying ducks, which at the beginning of the night had stood out in sharp relief against the gray mass of clouds, became dim and ghostly objects, and finally faded away altogether, the sound of their wings alone remaining. Then it was time to get over the carse and its awkward ditches on to the firm track, and even that was hard enough to make out when all light was gone. One light, however, always did remain, a warm bit of colour shining out over a wild scene. On the stormiest winter nights the clear crimson eye of the little lighthouse at Cromarty showed always over the black, desolate, windswept Firth.

GILFRID W. HARTLEY.