AN ENGLISH SQUIRE 45 



hobbled there, while the kettles are slung before the 

 tents in some nook out of the wind or the sunshine. 

 The fields are cut up in all manner of waving lines 

 and fantastic patterns, by copses and hangers and out- 

 lying spinneys, linked together by lines of trees growing 

 out of the straggling hedges. It is scarcely what you 

 would call a partridge country. There is more grass 

 than wheat ; and the root-crops on the higher lands, 

 especially in a dry season, would seem mere spectres of 

 profitable cultivation to a gentleman who farms in the 

 Lothians. With so much that is primitive, even in the 

 way of woods and furze and hedgerows, it is impossible 

 to lay your hand on the birds at the precise moment 

 you are looking for them ; and when you do find them 

 it is long odds that you fail to mark them in their 

 longer flights. Yet they are there in plenty, as you 

 may be very sure ; for there are a wealth of breeding- 

 places, and endless corners where they can bask, and 

 delightfully dry elevations where they can take refuge 

 from the rains in the spring. The fields are carefully 

 bushed as you may see, and there is an ample strength 

 of keepers ; though the villagers, who have lived like 

 their fathers on the estate, are but little addicted to 

 poaching. 



But the feature in such a south-country shooting is 

 the pheasants ; and the land looks as if it had been laid 

 out with a special eye to their delectation. Till they 

 come to a sudden and violent death, the wild broods 

 have pleasant times of it, with the dense undergrowth 

 of bramble, where nothing but a fox or some prowler 



