But it was not to be. On the 15th he writes reporting birds looking badly diseased, and on the 30th writes again that a third of the birds were dead.
It was sickening news, but there was hope yet, as a fair breeding stock was left, and the disease appeared to have spent itself, the birds nesting fairly well.
At the beginning of July disease again broke out, and with greater virulence, young and old birds falling before it; but David begged us to come, of course, in August and shoot down all we could, and so sweeten the ground for those that remained by stamping out all that was possible.
Disease prevailed over nearly all Scotland; amongst others, Glenmarkie was very bad. We did not put any birds on the table, and I sent none to my friends. What few good-looking birds there were went to London, and the scarcity through the country may be imagined when I say that they made 19s. a brace.
| Bag. | Dalnawillan and Rumsdale. |
|---|---|
| Grouse | 151 brace. |
| Sundries | 24 " |
My chums were pretty miserable, and so was I. It was a bitter disappointment. No word from D. as to taking a gun for the next season, and in about a week or ten days they both went south. However, I had to make the best of it, and, leaving my family at Dalnawillan, I went into Sutherlandshire trout fishing for a fortnight with my son Douglas, and after that we all went home.
Caithness, in those days, was the worst mapped county in Great Britain. There was a good estate map of the Ulbster estates, and the maps were pretty reliable for a few miles from the coast. Sutherland, belonging mainly to one proprietor, was well mapped.
On Dalnawillan we had a loch—a long walk across very bad ground from the lodge—that held, both in size and quality, the best trout in Sutherland and Caithness, but not plentiful; the best I ever did was eighteen fish in a day, but eight of them weighed 9-1/4lb., the largest being 1-3/4lb., and that was the largest size they ever reached, and, generally, a day's fishing meant eight or ten, with the half of them the larger size. A predecessor of mine at Dalnawillan assured me that many were got up to 3lb. and 4lb.; it is marvellous the falsehoods men will commit themselves to as to size of fish—men perfectly reliable in other ways.
The gillies talked a good deal about a loch in Sutherland, not far off our march, where the fish were nearly as large and good, and very free to rise. That sounded very nice, and needed to be experimented, and my son Douglas and I said we would take it on our way into Sutherlandshire.
In those days the lochs of Sutherlandshire were free to the angler, and for some years the Duke made it a condition in letting shootings that it should be so, and as the bulk of the lochs were difficult of access, and anglers few, there was no friction; and in the summer months there were generally two or three rod men stopping at Auchentoul Inn, on the Helmsdale Strath.