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ROAMIN' IN THE GLOAMIN' 231
a picturesque aspect to an otherwise uninteresting piece of land, the ravenous deer came down from the hills overnight and devoured every shoot! If I built a dam across a stream to make a reservoir "the rain descended and the floods came" sweeping away the labour of months. If I paid a hundred and twenty pounds each for a pair of Clydesdales I found they were only worth half the money a month or two later. Again, if I reared a pedigree foal of considerable potential value it was sure to fall and break a leg; if I acquired half a dozen aristocratic milch cows at an aristocratic price four of them — at least ! — were almost certain to die of some mysterious disease never before known in that part of Scotland. And if I set out, as I did, to build a few new roads through the estate I very speedily discovered that it would have been cheaper to construct a couple of residential thoroughfares through the busiest parts of London!
All my life, right up to the time I became one myself, I had envied the "landed gentleman" with his life of freedom in the open-air, his horses, his cattle, his dogs, his fruitful fields — everything "yielding its increase" even while he slept. Don't you believe a word of it. The picture is all wrong. I know. I've had some. I was lucky to get out of Glen Branter with my leather leggings and a haunch of preserved venison ! Fortunately the Forestry Commission of the British Government came along with an offer soon after the war to take over the Glen for afforestation purposes. With bankruptcy staring me in the face, or at least, shall I say, peering its ugly head round the corner, I accepted the offer. My farming and stock-breeding ambitions were dead. I might be a good enough comedian, I told myself, but I had proved a rank failure as a prosperous country squire!
Joking apart, however, we would never have left the Glen had John lived. It is situated in one of the loveliest parts of Argyllshire, a county which I adore beyond all others in Scotland. It grows the finest larch trees and flower