A SHOOTING LODGE 199 



occasional moss-pot, you might walk blindfold for miles 

 without a trip or a stumble ; where gout itself may do 

 a fair day's work, and timid corpulence shoot quietly 

 from the well-stuffed saddle, as from the bath-chair or 

 perambulator for the matter of that. These are the 

 moors that contribute such bloody butcher-bills early 

 in the season to the columns of the local press ; and 

 they have their uses in their way, for they send 

 Leadenhall grouse down to reasonable prices. These 

 are the moors where you can saunter straight ahead 

 without straining your back-sinews or bringing your 

 breathing to a standstill when your shaking frame has 

 breasted a bluff something less than sheerly per- 

 pendicular. As you potter forward, you find work in 

 abundance for the spare breech-loaders the henchmen 

 carry at your heels, and your dogs scarcely get well into 

 their range for the constant coveys that taint each rood 

 of the heather. 



For a fortnight or three weeks the slaughter is superb 

 for those who revel in it, and by that time the 

 compensatory tenderness of nature has put the survivors 

 of the massacre up to a thing or two. Your scared 

 birds seek safety in society, set their sentinels, take 

 their siestas with one eye open, feed with their shattered 

 nerves on the alert, and rise in packs a couple of rifle- 

 shots off at the vision of the human form. Unless you 

 care to charge your panniers with mountain-hares, 

 nothing more than an occasional outlying cock taken 

 napping will repay the most indomitable perseverance, 

 and perseverance is not the forte of the thick-winded 



