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BUTT AND BEN
A HIGHLAND BOYHOOD
by
DONALD SUTHERLAND
The background to this book is the view you get if you stand on the hill
above Oban, in Argyll, and look west over the isles of Kerrera and Mull to
the Atlantic and beyond.
. The title is, perhaps, misleading. There is certainly a little shooting,
and a little fishing among the hills, but the essence of it all is the
wealth of human character throughout: droll, eccentric, sometimes great,
never dull—the recollections of one whose boyhood was spent in Argyll fifty
to sixty years ago and has a remarkable memory. It was an age that already
seems to be passing into legend, when men were more independent and more
picturesque.
There was the kindly Colonel, for instance, who sometimes spoke his
thoughts aloud, to the consternation of his hearers; the Chief who solemnly
proposed to hang (legally) the Chancellor of the Exchequer; the eccentric
who greeted unwanted visitors by hurling stones at them from the library
window—and more besides, and all true, forby.
The Chapter Headings are illustrated in black and white by Gavin Nicol.
The Dust Jacket is by John Mackay.
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