‘T’ Ferns folk’ll not git t’ first birrd to-day.‘
I was not so certain, for I had seen two wee puffs of smoke rise from the centre of their line. But though the slow advance checked, there was no crowding together to congratulate a successful first shot.
The presence of rivals spurred us on, but, try as we would, not a bird could be found in the wet, quiet hollow; then, worse than all, a fine gray veil drew itself between us and our distant view, growing rapidly more dense, till we could see but a few yards.
‘Ferns wins,’ groaned I; but the ever-confident Jack claimed that it would require a finer shot than any of theirs to down a bird on that gusty moor. ‘But what of the flukes—eh?‘
‘We’ve as much chance as they. Keep a sharp lookout as we come opposite to these screes, and fire at the first thing that moves.’
Of course, this was what we were bound to do. In a few minutes the cloud blew aside, and just as its final skirts were rushing from the heather and scree in front, up rose with wild clamouring a covey of grouse. There was a sharp crackle as four guns belched forth together on them. Down went three birds. Whose was the first? Well, each claimed the honour, but the gamekeeper, as final referee, laid down that when shots are simultaneous the order of birds reaching the ground must count. The scene of this informal court was dramatic: the weathered old man, his kindly face lit up with delight at our referring the matter to him; the three splendid dusky-red birds laid neatly in front; the dogs wandering around, probably contrasting this delay with our usual pushing habits; and our four faces showing varying degrees of anxiety as we awaited the veteran’s decision. For a minute he sat silent and motionless, his gray-clad body standing out against the dark heather and gray-lichened crag of the rolling, windy moor, and when his first point was again agreed to, he declared that the cock was the first down. As I was the only one who had singled him, it was my first grouse.
Now half an hour more we waited for better light, with a possible lifting of the mist-curtain sufficiently high for sport to be more than intermittent. And after a while things certainly began to be brighter. As we patrolled along, the birds rose better and the guns got into better use. But all day the wind remained powerful enough to aid the birds’ escape.
Another year the circumstances of shooting were easier, the weather was fine, our stock promising, and our first bird was got very early. One of the dogs ranging in very delight in front flushed a small covey from a dot of heather just beyond the garden palings, and our youngest gun dropped a straggler. The chances of a kill at the long range were so remote that no one else attempted a shot.
Than the moors on a fine September morning I cannot conceive a fairer space. At midsummer the bees drone sleepily over the blooming heather, the little runnels murmur distantly from their grass-hidden courses. Of bird-life little is to be seen; the grouse cower among the heather until near sundown. As we stand by the weedy tarn this morning, however, there is ample evidence that the spreading mantle of chocolate and green is thronged with life. Here the path crosses a boggy tract where dirty jets of water spurt over our boots; now we encounter bouldery ground, and the path winds among the greater fragments. Anon we brush through a narrow channel running athwart a waste of heather.
‘There they go!’ There is a sharp rustle among the grass, some hurried wing-beats and a hoarse call ‘come-back, come-back,’ and a splendid covey of grouse sail away from us. But not a gun is raised, for the gamekeeper has expressly stipulated that in this basin of green swamp and sparkling dot of water, chosen haunt at all times of wild-duck, not a shot is yet to be fired. Regretfully we trudge upward on the rugged path to the top of the slope.