There was a Highland shooting which in those days seemed a paradise of schoolboy holiday. It belonged to a well-known Scottish peeress married to a French nobleman, on whom it was thrown away, though their son grew to be of a different mind. Thus it came on a long lease into the occupation of keen sportsmen of my family, who naturally did not care to build for their inevitable successors. The “lodge” was a short row of white cottages, the centre one turned into a parlour, the others into bedrooms; and as youngsters grew up, extra accommodations were provided in the shape of a tent and iron shanties, the whole group backed by a thin clump of wind-blown firs visible some dozen miles away on the bare mountain side. All through the summer months it made an encampment for a band of kilted youngsters, “hardy, bold, and wild,” taking in the Highland air at every pore, with miles of moor and burn for their playground, which they knew not to be haunted by the victims of Druid rites. Not that more sophisticated guests were unknown at this eyry of eyases. The great little Earl Russell, at that time, if I am not mistaken, Prime Minister, was tenant of a neighbouring moor. One day he had come over for a sociable beat, broken in on by a messenger, hot foot across the heather, bearing a huge official envelope superscribed with the name of a ducal colleague. The statesman requested a private apartment in which to examine this communication, but the only closet available was a bedroom, where he opened the cover to find--a caricature of himself from _Punch_! I have been led away by a grumble at the self-indulgent and well-appointed sportsmen who in this generation invade my native heath. But, however much they make themselves at home here, we chuckle to think that they at least cannot tune their ears to the native music. For what says the poet-- A Sassenach chief may be bonnily built, He may purchase a sporran, a bonnet, and kilt; Stick a skean in his hose--wear an acre of stripes-- But he cannot assume an affection for pipes.