Next morning at eight o'clock all the shooters gathered together, and a score and a half of peasants from the countryside collected round the great door of the farmhouse.
These were the beaters.
The dogs were howling piteously; they, poor beasts, quite understood they had no part in this sort of shooting party.
One or two might perhaps be chosen from amongst the roughest of the retrievers, to send after a wounded hare which seemed about to escape into the forest, but that would be all.
These dogs usually had a man specially kept to look after them, and, except for the brief times when they were let loose, they were kept rigidly leashed.
The shooting began on leaving the farm. M. Moquet explained the general plan for the day to the head gamekeeper, deferring until later to tell him the particular plan of each battue.
I was placed a hundred paces from the farm in a sandy ravine where some children had dug a great hole in the sand when playing. M. Moquet pointed this hole out to me, and told me to crouch in it, assuring me that, if I did not stir, the hares would come towards me hot-foot.
I did not feel much confidence in the spot, but, as M. Moquet was commander-in-chief of the expedition, there was nothing to be said in the matter. I subsided into my hiding-place, determined to rush out into the open when occasion offered.
Then the driving began. At the first shouts uttered by the beaters, two or three hares rose, and, sitting up for a moment to see what course to take, began to make for my ravine at uneven distances from one another.