“It’s no good starting too early,” the head keeper had said at the lodge on the previous evening, “give the birds time to eat and time to settle down, and then you’ll do all right.”
And on the morning of the 13th he had declared that the breeze was just what was wanted, and that everything pointed to a successful day. The party, four guns and two keepers, with retrievers, had gone steadily from the low ground where the lodge stood, across the fresh-cut fields, over the hill-side and on to the moor. The heather was short and pointers were not used on it.
The old gentleman who took the moor did not shoot, but his three sons and nephew were first-class shots. While Father Grouse was saying his last words, he had seen them, and had realised that the men with the guns were young and sturdy, just the sort he had learned to fear. In that trying moment he realised how he had deceived himself and family, and how the gunners, by coming up the wind, had made it impossible for him to scent them in time.
“Rise quickly with me,” he whispered bravely to the Mother Grouse, “we’ll go for a safer place, my dear, and you follow us,” he added to his children. With these words he rose, and the others followed so quickly that the six birds seemed to take wing together.
“Bang, bang, bang, bang,” said the guns, and Father and Mother Grouse sank down into the heather that had been their home so long, with never a feather of their fine plumage ruffled. They were shot dead so cleanly that they knew no pain, and with them two of their children fell, not to die so easily. The white spot at the base of the beak of Father Grouse had a bright drop of blood on it, Mother Grouse did not even show as much.
“Mark down the others,” cried the man who had shot the parent birds, and opened the season with a successful “right and left”.
“Isn’t worth while,” said his friend who had shot one of the younger birds, “they are only cheepers.”
Then the birds being retrieved, the party continued to shoot its way over the moor, meeting with fair success, for the wind kept the birds from hearing the approach, and they had fed so well during the fine weather that they were not at all wild. Twenty odd brace had gone to the bag by two o’clock.
The young cock grouse never knew how he got away, nor what became of his family. He heard the guns cracking at the back of him, the hissing of shot through the air, and he flew wildly until he felt he had reached safety, then sank down into the heather, not daring to stir. He heard the guns again; once the remnant of a broken covey passed over the heather where he crouched, but he did not move until feeding-time came, and then, after a brief meal, returned to shelter.