When heaving to the tempest's wing
They hurled them on the foe."
There is a new meaning to the song when Davie pours it forth in the glen itself:
"Sweet the lavrock's note and lang,
Lilting wildly up the glen,
But aye to me it sings ae sang,
Will ye no come back again?"
What a chorus we gave him! There are some days in which we live more than twenty-four hours; and these days in Scottish glens count for more than a week of ordinary life. We are in the region of gamekeepers and dogs. It is the last day of July, and the whole country is preparing for the annual massacre of the 12th of August. Is civilization so very far advanced when the titled and wealthiest portions of cultured society have still for their chief amusements—which are in many cases with them the principal business of life—the racing of horses one half of the year, and the murdering of poor half-domesticated birds or the chasing to death of poor foxes and hares the other half? Can civilized man find nothing better to furnish needful recreation after useful toil?
The prices paid for a deer forest in Scotland are incredible. Twenty-five to fifty thousand dollars per annum for the right to shoot over a few thousand acres of poorly timbered land, and a force of gamekeepers and other attendants to pay for besides.
For the present the British are what is called a sporting people, and the Highlands are their favorite hunting-grounds. Their ideas of sport are curious. General Sheridan told me that, when abroad, he was invited to try some of their sport, but when he saw the poor animals driven to him, and that all he had to do was to bang away, he returned the gun to the attendant. He really could not do this thing, and the General is not very squeamish either. As for hunting down a poor hare—that needs the deadening influence of custom—women ought to be ashamed of it now; men will be anon.