The date of our visit to Ben Ledi’s summit was “on or about” the time when the young grouse begin to lose the number of their covey, and to learn that every man who treads the moor is not so harmless as the shepherd, especially when a dog accompanies him. And ever and again we come across them sitting warily and watchfully among the heather, and saw them rising far out of gunshot. The grouse, indeed, were now being deserted for the black game, which, on account of the general lateness of the grey hen in sitting compared with that of her red sister of the moor, are allowed a little rest. Of course some men make it a rule to pull a trigger upon a blackcock how or whenever they can, and some birds fall to the guns of those who do not know the difference between heath-fowl and moor-fowl. Most people, indeed, remember the canny reply of the Scotch keeper to the English sportsman who was out on the moors for the first time, and had missed what he thought was a grouse. “I was too soon, Donald, I am afraid,” said the latter. “’Deed, and you were, sir, eight days too soon; it was an auld blackcock.” We saw over and again in the course of the day good proof of what we had often heard that the blackcock is far from a model husband, and anything but resembles the grouse-cock in his devotion to his mate.
But we must step out on our homeward and southward journey with the Leny accompanying us in the valley, the road being quite equal, during its mile or two, to that between Callander and Coilantogle. The river is low to-day, and runs under banks that are hung with ferns and lingering foxgloves, with golden rod and harebells, and all the flowers of the late summer. But in a wet season, when each rivulet along the mountain side swells into an angry torrent, and from an occasional cliff “the wild cataract leaps in glory,” it exults in the added strength of all its hundred turbulent vassals, and rises in its might, and seething, and struggling, and overflowing its banks, rises and roars a furious stream.
As we get into Callander again we are passed by the coaches on their return from Loch Katrine, and when we look at the prancing steeds, the happy tourists, and last, but not by any means least, the red-coated, brass-buttoned, and very superior persons who handle the whip and reins, we have no difficulty in seeing why it is that there should be in our days a coaching revival, even on routes where there is the opportunity of travelling by train. There is no more delightful way of spending a summer day, given sunshine and warmth, than to have a drive on a well-appointed coach, behind an accomplished whip, and four “spanking” horses.