Lost Leaders | Page 6

how the hills must be

ringing with their shouts, round many a lonely tarn, where the men of
one parish meet those of the next in friendly conflict north of the
Tweed. The exhilarating yell of "soop her up," whereby the curler who
wields a broom is abjured to sweep away the snow in front of the
advancing stone, will many a time be heard this winter. There is
something peculiarly healthy about this sport--in the ring with which
the heavy stones clash against each other; in the voices of the burly
plaided men, shepherd, and farmer, and laird; in the rough banquet of
beef and greens and the copious toddy which close the day's exertions.
Frost brings with it an enforced close-season for most of furred and
feathered kind. The fox is safe enough, and, if sportsmen are right,
must be rather wearying for open weather, and for the return of his
favourite exercise with hounds. But even when the snow hangs out her
white flag of truce and goodwill between man and beast, the British
sportsman is still the British sportsman, and is not averse to going out
and killing something. To such a one, wild-fowl shooting is a
possibility, though, as good Colonel Hawker says, some people
complain forsooth that it interferes with ease and comfort. We should
rather incline to think it does. A black frost with no moon is not
precisely the kind of weather that a degenerate sportsman would choose
for lying in the frozen mud behind a bush, or pushing a small punt set
on large skates across the ice to get at birds. Few attitudes can be more
cramping than that of the gunner who skulks on one knee behind his
canoe, pushing it with one hand, and dragging himself along by the aid
of the other. Then, it is disagreeable to have to use a gun so heavy that
the stock is fitted with a horsehair pillow, or even with a small bolster.
The whistle of widgeon and the shrill-sounding pinions of wild geese
may be attractive noises, and no doubt all shooting is exciting; and a
form of shooting which stakes all on one shot must offer some thrilling
moments of expectation. The quarry has to be measured by number, not
by size, and fifty widgeon at one discharge, or a brace of wild swans
may almost serve to set against a stag of ten. {23} The lover of nature
has glimpses in wild-fowl shooting such as she gives no other man--the
glittering expanse of waters, the birds "all in a charm," all uttering their
cry together, the musical moan of the tide, and the "long glories of the
winter moon." But success is too difficult, equipment too costly, and

rheumatism too certain for wild-fowl shooting to be reckoned among
popular winter sports.

HUMAN LEVITATION.
Why is it that living fish add nothing to the "weight of the bucket of
water in which they swim?" Charles II. is said to have asked the Royal
Society. A still more extraordinary question has been propounded in
the grave pages of the Quarterly Journal of Science, edited by Mr.
Crookes, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the discoverer of the
useful metal thallium. The problem set in this learned review does not,
like that of the Merry Monarch, beg the question of facts. "What is the
scientific inference from the various accounts, modern and traditional,
of human levitation?" is the difficulty before the world at this present
moment. Now, there may be people who never heard of levitation, nor
even of "thaums," a term that frequently occurs in the article we refer to.
A slight acquaintance with the dead languages, whose shadows
reappear in this queer fashion, enables the inquirer to decide that
"levitation" means the power of becoming lighter than the surrounding
atmosphere, and setting at nought the laws of gravitation.
Thaums, again, are wonders, and there is no very obvious reason why
they should not be called wonders. But to return to levitation. Most of
us have heard how Mr. Home and other gifted people possess the
faculty of being raised from the ground, and of floating about the room,
or even out of the window. There are clouds of witnesses who have
observed these phenomena, which generally occur in the dark. In fact,
they are part of that vague subject called spiritualism, about which
opinion is so much divided, and views are so vague. It has been said
that the human race, in regard to this high argument, is divided into five
classes. There are people who believe; people who investigate; people
who think the matter really ought to be looked into; people who dislike
the topic, but who would believe in the phenomena if they were proved;
and people