UNDERGRADUATE
Malcolm's Shed
By RON A L D EDEN (Christ Church, Oxford) THE stranger who travels the road past the ganu • keeper's cottage does not notice the shed behind it oil the fringe of the birches. A little stone building, with one door, two windows and a roof of corrugated iron, the unassuming exterior gives no hint of the treasures within. Fcl' here, 'gathered over the years, are stored the manifold imped ' menta of the gamekeeper's versatile craft, reflecting the changes and experiences of two generations, Malcolm having succeeded his father as head keeper a quarter of a century ago.
Within these four close walls no space is wasted. Acroi the rafters lie the larger implements, such as the peat cum with its huge, weirdly shaped blade, and a pile of birch beson which are used to beat and control the spread of the fii when the tall, rank patches of heather are burnt in earl spring. There are also implements from the farm, a coupl of hay rakes and a pitch-fork perhaps, which have la] neglected after the hay-making and which. Malcolm 11( discovered while on his rounds and impounded until t1
0
5 owner should claim them. When he does so they will be surrendered only after an admonition against the waste of leaving them to rot in the fields. On floor, shelf and hook are countless other items, each With a part in the keeper's repertoire of duties. Rat-traps. _Ttraps coils of snare wire, ferreting nets and game bags drape the walls. In a corner lie a couple of fox-traps, necessary instruments of cruelty in country where there are no hunts. A wooden decoy goose sits upon the window sill waiting for autumn evenings, when it will be taken to the lochan in the hills to lure down to the water, and within range of the hidden gunner, the living ones it so cunningly resembles. Even the echoes of old wars are to be found within the shed. here The bowl Malcolm uses to feed his hens has been since 1918 when, returning from the war, he quickly turned his steel helmet to a peaceful purpose by one simple act: a :t) fashion a sword into a ploughshare it must be beaten, b steel helmet becomes a feeding bowl by mere inversion. Likew Ise his bagpipes, whose haunting notes inspired courage and fear on the battlefields of France, returned after the Armistice to be played round the laird's dinner table. With the Second War that ancient custom died, and now they lie at rest in a dusty wooden box beside the guncase. The Second War brought more relics, among them a German trenching spade sent home by an under-keeper on active service. The biding blade enables it to fit as neatly in a game bag as in a soldier's pack, and it thus becomes the ideal ferreting . spade This museum of memory is the best place to draw tales °E the past from Malcolm's rich experience and well stocked
Mind. On days of cancelled shoots, when the dripping coverts
Would drench the beaters battling through them, or when hard frost prevents the setting of traps and snares, Malcolm might found here oiling the guns and rifles, cutting snare pins, ..4nenclIng a pair of boots, or even cutting someone's hair, for
In specialist age the keeper still can turn his hands to most
things. Little provocation will be needed to lead him into rentiniscence. As an essential preliminary he will light the
10111 noddle of his pipe and, as the pungent fumes of rum-
teeNd twist mingle with and destroy the pleasanter peat reek from the stove, his eyes will glance round the walls. Finally, with a sparkle of joyful recollection they will rest on Pair of deer horns, and his weatherbeaten face will curl into a smile, giving it the purple aspect of the summer hills,
their heathery slopes lined with peat hags. These hills, with their contrasts of weather through the seasons, from hot days of grouse shooting to icy days stalking hinds or helping the
thePherds to rescue their flocks from the snowdrifts, have in thir several moods contributed much to the contours of Malcolm's face. A wealth of stories of these occasions will be told, and the in their telling makes even the familiar ones as fresh as ever. For inevitable mention there will be the stalks with a Peer who always succeeded in losing his spectacles in the dropped of a stalk, or whose cigarette box, lighter or snuff box k_ 'Ted out of his pocket, with the consequence that the better part of the day would be spent searching for it instead of a stag. Then there was the youth, now a well-known general, who having spotted a rabbit in the rock garden during dinner, and fired at it several times without it stirring, was Intel to his fury that it was stuffed. On fine, warm evenings, golf clubs will be taken from a corner and the tale-telling will be accompanied by a putting catch on the small patch of lawn outside, with pauses to rush back to the shed to escape the torments of the hordes of midges. Pipes are lit to discourage the tiny devils from Pursuing us inside, Malcolm's charged with his home-made /!arie y which, not unreasonably. his wife forbids him to smoke in the ! house. Night at last ends our game. and as the lights Of distant stant factories twinkle from the smoky valley I grope 81Y way-home, while Malcolm goes off to shut up the dogs ,,1 hens or secure his hand-reared pheasant chicks against Lae Possible intrusion of a hungry rat.
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