"Will you hear my story also, — Huge Sport, brave adventure in plenty?" The boys were a band from Oxford, The oldest of whom was twenty.
The bothy we held carouse in
Was bright with fire and candle; Tale followed tale like a merry-go-round Whereof Sport turned the handle.
In our eyes and noses — turf-smoke: In our ears a tune from the trivet, Whence "Boiling, boiling," the kettle sang, "And ready for fresh Glenlivet."
So, feat capped feat, with a vengeance: Truths, though, — the lads were loyal: "Grouse, five score brace to the bag! Deer, ten hours' stalk of the Royal!"
Of boasting, not one bit, boys! Only there seemed to settle Somehow above your curly heads, — Plain through the singing kettle,
Palpable through the cloud, As each new-puffed Havanna Rewarded the teller's well-told tale, This vaunt "To Sport — Hosanna!
"Hunt, fish, shoot, Would a man fulfil life's duty! Not to the bodily frame alone Does Sport give strength and beauty,
"But character gains in — courage? Ay, Sir, and much beside it! You don't sport, more's the pity: You soon would find, if you tried it,
"Good sportsman means good fellow, Sound-hearted he, to the centre; Your mealy-mouthed mild milksops — There's where the rot can enter!
"There's where the dirt will breed. The shabbiness Sport would banish! Oh no, Sir, no! In your honoured case All such objections vanish.
"'T is known how hard you studied: A Double-First — what, the jigger! Give me but half your Latin and Greek, I'll never again touch trigger!
"Still, tastes are tastes, allow me! Allow, too, where there's keenness For Sport, there's little likelihood Of a man's displaying meanness!"
So, put on my mettle, I interposed. "Will you hear my story?" quoth I. "Never mind how long since it happed, I sat, as we sit, in a bothy;
"With as merry a band of mates, too, Undergrads all on a level: (One's a Bishop, one's gone to the Bench, And one's gone — well, to the Devil.)
"When, lo, a scratching and tapping! In hobbled a ghastly visitor. Listen to just what he told us himself — No need of our playing inquisitor!"
———
Do you happen to know in Ross-shire
Mount . . . Ben . . . but the name scarce matters: Of the naked fact I am sure enough, Though I clothe it in rags and tatters.
You may recognise Ben by description; Behind him — a moor's immenseness; Up goes the middle mount of a range, Fringed with its firs in denseness.
Rimming the edge, its fir-fringe, mind! For an edge there is, though narrow; From end to end of the range, a stripe Of path runs straight as an arrow.
And the mountaineer who takes that path
Saves himself miles of journey
He has to plod if he crosses the moor
Through heather, peat and burnie.
But a mountaineer he needs must be, For, look you, right in the middle Projects bluff Ben — with an end in ich — Why planted there, is a riddle:
Since all Ben's brothers little and big
Keep rank, set shoulder to shoulder, And only this burliest out must bulge Till it seems — to the beholder
From down in the gully, — as if Ben's breast, To a sudden spike diminished, Would signify to the boldest foot "All further passage finished!"
Yet the mountaineer who sidles on
And on to the very bending, Discovers, if heart and brain be proof, No necessary ending.
Foot up, foot down, to the turn abrupt
Having trod, he, there arriving. Finds — what he took for a point was breadth, A mercy of Nature's contriving.
So, he rounds what, when 'tis reached, proves straight, From one side gains the other: The wee path widens — resume the march, And he foils you, Ben my brother!
But Donald — (that name, I hope, will do) —
I wrong him if I call "foiling" The tramp of the callant, whistling the while As blithe as our kettle's boiling.
He had dared the danger from boyhood up, And now, — when perchance was waiting A lass at the brig below, — 'twixt mount And moor would he stand debating?
Moreover this Donald was twenty-five, A glory of bone and muscle: Did a fiend dispute the right of way, Donald would try a tussle.
Lightsomely marched he out of the broad
On to the narrow and narrow; A step more, rounding the angular rock, Reached the front straight as an arrow.
He stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood, When — whom found he full-facing? What fellow in courage and wariness too, Had scouted ignoble pacing,
And left low safety to timid mates, And made for the dread dear danger, And gained the height where — who could guess He would meet with a rival ranger?