"Ah, by-the-by," adds Dick, "what time shall we start? Better have the trap at twelve—quite early enough, eh?"
So Jack betakes himself to the newspaper; I am dragged off in disgust to the billiard-room; and the Squire goes off to show old Jones, who is staying here, all about the gardens, &c.
How I loathe the gardens from that moment!—how every shrub became a bugbear, every flower a poisonous weed, to my jaundiced eye, as I mentally abused my host for not turning out everybody sooner, and doing things smarter! My temper is rapidly vanishing; I have been beaten in two games by Tom, to whom I used formerly to allow fifteen out of fifty; I am smoking a cigar of Dick's (a bad one I think it, of course), when suddenly the sound of wheels breaks on my ear, and rushing madly to my room again, I don my shot-belt, I pocket wads, powder, and caps, shoulder my gun, and in two minutes am seated in the elegant little double dog-cart, waiting in a broiling sun for these tardy sportsmen. I have sat for full a quarter of an hour, when Jack strolls out, and, in a voice as though nothing had or was about to happen, exclaims—
"Hallo, Sam! are you ready? I must go and dress." And this to a man who has been gaitered since half-past eight. At half-past twelve he reappeared, dressed in magnificent apparel, the result of Poole's and Anderson's united efforts, and examining, to the increase of my impatience, the elaborate locks of a brand new breech-loader. Formerly, we used to take care of that sort of thing the night before at the latest. However, our horses are good ones, and Dick, who knows very well how to handle them—about the only thing I can say for him—puts them along in very neat form at a brisk pace to Brinkhill. This is all very pleasant; and as we near the ground my spirits begin to rise again. It takes us, however, at least twenty minutes to discuss which is the most advantageous beat—a matter which used to be settled as we came along; but I am at last on the move, and begin to forget the past grievances, only hoping they won't strike work too early. It is the same old field in which I so well remember Jack making his debût and missing the rabbit; but I miss the eager faces of those days sadly; it doesn't seem the same thing to me; half the pleasure of a thing, after all, is in enjoying it in company; but that half is sadly marred if the said company are cool in their enjoyment. The dogs, too, are disgustingly wild now. Old Rake breaks fence and flushes our first covey long out of gunshot, my disgust at which is further augmented by one of the keepers, as wild as the dog, breaking line and starting a hare, as remote as the partridges, by his loud imprecations after the miscreant, who is utterly deaf alike to whistle, threats, and entreaties. There is fault enough here; but it doesn't lie entirely with the keeper; it is too evident there is an absence of the eye of the master. If the Squire grows indifferent to their proceedings, he can scarcely expect his dogs and keepers to be what they were; the keeper gets lazy or dishonest, the dogs' training is neglected, and by-and-by they become useless or worse than useless, and their services are discarded. Now if there is one thing more than another which enhances the pleasure of a day's partridge-shooting, it is to watch a brace of well-trained pointers work a field. Why is it then—for obviously it is so—that the use of dogs, and especially of setters and pointers in the field, is gradually being discarded?
But to proceed. As soon as order is tolerably restored, we advance again, and pretty steadily beat two or three fields, bagging, with an unheard-of amount of missing, about two brace of birds. We are just entering the next field, when the Brinkhill tenant rides up and asks us all in to lunch. Ye gods, what a feast! Some years ago some bread and cheese, and perhaps a couple of glasses of sherry under a hedge was considered ample on these occasions. Now, however, I have before me an elegant repast of ham and tongue, of fowls and lamb, of pies and fruit, of beer and sherry, port and claret, such as would have shamed the epicurean deities of heathen mythology quaffing ambrosial nectar on the heights of Olympus. With a hopeless shudder I deposit my gun in a corner of the room and take my seat. We breakfasted at ten, but the "unwonted" exercise (alas! it should be so) has given the youngsters an appetite, and their tongues are tied for ten minutes, before worthy Mr Shorthorn, the tenant, produces a bottle of "that very fine old port" he so wishes the Squire to taste. I am not exaggerating when I state that lunch lasted a good hour. Then his pigs are inspected, and what with the wine and the waiting, I can well foresee what will happen to our sport: tongues will be loosed; misses will, if possible, increase; and I feel convinced that the partridges will have little to fear from us for this afternoon, at all events. However, we do manage at last to get away by about half-past three or four o'clock, and commence beating a very promising piece of stubble. I have just bagged a hare, and the dogs have been reduced, by dint of much rating, into a state of downcharge whilst I load, when something is heard galloping behind us, and Dick, who had stayed behind, as we thought, to fill his powder-flask, appears in the field trying the paces of the tenant's young one. Although he is well behind the beat, the galloping horse forms a disturbing element to the guns. Dick rides over the low fence at the end, round the next field, and finally returns right in the way of a shot I might have had at a landrail. I don't swear, because I don't approve thereof, and, moreover, am moderate in my temper; but this is indeed trying, and, to make matters worse, the fellow doesn't appear in the least bit ashamed of himself, but quietly dismounts, feels the legs of the colt carefully down, and, refusing to take his gun from the keepers, remarks that he is tired of missing, and (to my joy) shall go home. A prudent resolve, as he had fired at least twenty or thirty shots without touching a feather, as it seemed to my heated imagination; but the keeper, with a presence the late Duc de Morny might have envied, urges him "not to give over yet; he might 'ave a haccident and hit summut." Laughter is irresistible, but Dick's ardour is not equal to trusting to this remote contingency, so he wends his way homewards, for a wonder, on his own legs. The rest of us proceed again, but the shooting is, if possible, worse than before lunch; and as we enter the park again I ask, in a dejected tone of the head keeper, "What is the bag?" "Seven brace, three hares, and one rabbit." I turn away with a sigh, and mentally resolve to remove from my head, in the solitude of my chamber, on my return, the hairs—the many hairs—that must have turned grey during that terrible day; and I join the rest to reseek the hall, a sadder and a sulkier man. We enter the billiard-room at six, to find Dick engaged in a game of billiards with his pretty cousin, Lucy Hazard—the dog! but feeling that he deserves nothing at our hands, we break the tête-à-tête and summon the other ladies for a pool. Lucy has been chaffing Master Dick about "being such a muff as to return so soon." Quite right—an uncommonly nice girl is Miss Lucy, and with £50,000 of her own, too, they say. If I were ten years younger, I think I would marry her (I am far too vain to doubt her consent), and get some shooting of my own,—some shooting, sir, conducted on my own principles: I don't care much for the Downcharge Hall style of doing business. "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre," remarked a French general, as he levelled his glass at our light squadrons charging through the bloody vale of Balaklava. "C'est luxurieux, mais ce n'est pas le sport," remarks the writer of this grumble, as he levels his pen at the sportsmen of Downcharge Hall and all who may resemble them.
SIMPSON'S SNIPE
"Who is Mr Simpson?" asked my wife, tossing a letter across the breakfast-table. This same little lady opens my correspondence with the sang-froid of a private secretary.
"Who is Mr Simpson?" she repeated. "If he is as big as his monogram, we shall have to widen all the doors, and raise the ceilings, in order to let him in."
The monogram referred to resembled a pyrotechnic device. It blazed in all the colours of the rainbow, and twisted itself like the coloured worsted in a young lady's first sampler.