Now the dogs are released, and the line of guns shakes out. The old keeper, as a special favour in return for early summer inquiries about his broods, walks close beside, constituting himself my loader. I know this moor well; for several years I have watched the seasons pass over its face of spreading bracken and stiff, erect heather; otherwise I might be impatient.
‘It’s a bit noisy for t’ birds here,’ is an apology hazarded by the old man; ‘a good many sheep have been driven across there this last week.’ ('Across there,’ indicated by a sweep of his arm, is a moorland road, lonesome-looking enough to-day.)
A gun is discharged at the far end of our line—I cannot see exactly by whom, as we are in a slight fold of the moor, then quite a small volley. A covey has flown right down the line of guns. In a moment the birds whir across my line of vision, but they are too far away for a shot. This glen illumined by the morning sunshine is like a piece from fairyland. Sphagnum in all stages, golden and white and green, and gray-green bent; tinkling streamlets and moss-hung rocks; every blade of grass, every branchlet of heather, every frond of fern and bracken, is decked with beads of dew, and the sunshine revels in each and every drop as though it were a crystal prism, throwing off glories and halos of rainbow hues.
In a minute we clear this little gully and are again level with the others. Each man carries his own game-bag (save myself, whom the veteran serves), and will do his own loading; but game is sparse, and for five brace apiece we may have to tramp as many miles. However, there is always magnificent scenery and bracing air, and now and again there will be lively incidents—sequences of shots as rapid as you can fire and exchange shells. ‘Nerves’ on such occasions are almost sure to leave you with an empty game-bag.
So along we tramp, shooting where any opportunity arises. The dogs go through their work thoroughly and cheerfully; we guns are young and athletic, so that the long walk does not tire us. At lunch-time we are close to a disused sheepfold, in the lee of which our meal is spread. During the half-hour rest we indulged in we got the old keeper to tell us stories from his own experience. He has been on various estates, and commanded all sorts of shooting; but with middle age the homing instinct turned him to the land of the fells and lakes again. He had amassed what was to him a competency, but his hands could not drop the gun altogether, and he gladly accepted his present position—a lucrative pleasure, not a labour to him. And this was the story he told us, between puffs of a black clay pipe, as he sat on a lichened stone with his back against the wall of the sheepfold:
‘Many years ago, near one of the best shooting estates in the Fells Country, there lived two poachers. Their ancestors had been frugal and thrifty, so that a small farm—twenty or thirty acres, maybe—and a cottage were left to these two. To meet them on the country roads or in their fields, they were simple, slow-speaking farmers like their neighbours. But to see them making nets and snares when the storm howled round the little house—as I have done—they were smart craftsmen. And in the dark woods and leas, or by the salmon streams, the most alert watcher could never find Dick and Ned. They could thread the worst-tangled glades without a sound, for they knew every inch of them. As to game, whether fin, fur, or feather, Dick and Ned were sure somehow to get a large share of it. Their house and bit of land lay between two wide sheep-farms. Their only sister had died when the lads were sixteen, their parents some time before, and after that bereavement the only companions they took were a dog and a cat. Concerning which there is a story.
‘The two men were sat at breakfast, when Dick said, in his chanting voice:
‘“Ned, thoo likes thy dog.”
‘“Dick, thoo likes thy cat.”
‘And at this the two joined battle. And when at last a chance caller at the house intervened and drew them apart, both men were dripping with blood. As quickly as they had fought they fell back to the old intimate intercourse, Ned alone remarking: