The next day was showery and gusty, and the birds did not sit well, but at Glenmarkie they would have rolled up in packs.
I spent two nights at the lodge with the Colonel's brother, who came over to meet me, and next morning was away to Thurso to meet the Colonel and Dunbar.
It was agreed that the lease should be assigned. I suggested a new lease from Dunbar, and that he should make it the full ten years.
"Take it to the end of my lease, seventeen years, if you like," says Dunbar, to which I assented; so it was settled that I should take the 24,000 acres of Dalnawillan, and Chullacan, and Backlas, at the rent of £560, proprietor paying all rates and taxes, and I paying my keeper and all other expenses.
This included a joint right of trout fishing on Dalnawillan, Strathmore, and Glutt, and salmon fishing, after June 1.
When I returned to England my shooting friends told me that I was crazy to take shooting in such an out-of-the-way, wild country, and tie myself up for such a term of years. I felt I had done right; I meant grouse shooting and fishing, and that, as railways had crept up, and were creeping up, that shootings were more likely to improve than get worse, in case of some unforeseen event occurring that should cause me to cease to shoot.
Black had made every inquiry as to disease. Dunbar told me plump that five years before they had had disease, but it was a mild attack, and did not stop shooting. As, however, the moor had not carried a good head of grouse until the year I took it, I expect that the tenants shot away, killing down the breeding stock that should have been nursed. It was admitted that the moors on the south and east had been badly hit with disease.
I took the place with my eyes open, and was prepared to take the fat with the lean, but I candidly confess that I had more lean than I expected or liked.
I looked for disease in 1874, but it came sooner.
