There is a small book, written by one of the greatest masters of fiction. No romance stirs the blood, excites the imagination of weary men, as this book does. Lever, Dumas, Hugo are pigmies compared to this giant among story-tellers.
It is a small book—no matter its colour—its pages number some hundreds, and they can be read, re-read, and read yet again. On every page is the same story differently, and delightfully told. It never palls. A wise woman is she who, seeing her husband tired and perhaps bored, slips into his hands this volume of immortal prose. If he be a sportsman, his chair comfortable, and the fire brightly burning, all his worries will vanish like “smoke” on the hillside, and for the space of some hours he will be at peace, tramping once again the moors, fishing the rivers, the lochs, and climbing the hills he loves. Marcus, lonely and deserted, opened the book and read:
| £600: | Exceptionally good shooting. Average bag 245 brace grouse. Lodge contains dining-room, drawing-room, ten bedrooms, bathroom, and complete offices. Hotel, post, telegraph, quite close. Nearest station twenty-five miles. Very bracing climate and lovely scenery. Proprietor pays—etc. |
| £500: | Beautiful lodge, four and a half miles from station. Contains 4 public rooms, 6 bedrooms, bathroom, and ample servants’ accommodation. Stabling, coach house. Kennels, gardens, 5000 acres, shooting yielding 80 brace grouse, 3000 rabbits, 100 hares, 200 brace partridges, 100 snipe, 200 pheasants, 20 duck, roe deer and plover, woodcock. Good trout fishing in lochs and burns. Salmon fishing can be had. |
| £450: | 10,000 acres, mostly moorland, yielding about 250 brace grouse (limit), four stags, besides other game. Good woodcock and snipe and wild fowl shooting, in winter. Exclusive right to the fishing in whole of river, six miles, both banks. And in one of the finest lochs in Scotland, which holds sea trout and occasionally a salmon. Lodge situated in the midst of magnificent scenery— |
Marcus leant forward and re-filled his pipe—the shadow of a great peace in his eyes—a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He had no wish to be disturbed—let Shan’t stay with her aunt, and Diana, too, if she wanted to—it was like the old game of Oranges and Lemons. They could choose; he was Oranges—
Last season’s bag—6 stags, 200 brace grouse, 20 wild fowl, 111 hares, and 90 sea trout—
He sighed and turned the pages.
| £2000: | Splendid sporting domain, yielding 80 or 84 stags, 500 brace grouse and there are also roe deer, hares, wild fowl, salmon and sea trout. Fishing in river from both banks, also trout fishing in well-known loch and excellent trout fishing in many hill lochs—good sea fishing [this for Pillar]. Very comfortable lodge situated at the head of one of the finest lochs in Scotland, amidst magnificent scenery—20 miles from station. Post and telegraph close by. Lodge contains—hall, drawing-room, dining-room, smoking-room, gun room, ample bedroom accommodation, two bathrooms, complete offices. Proprietor pays— |
“Not much,” murmured Marcus.
£250.
£200.