CHAPTER XXV 



Winter Ferreting 



IT is a natural descent from the clouds, or where 

 the clouds ought to be, to the Lowland coverts. 

 We are in the great preserves, where hares in herds 

 and troops of home-bred pheasants invite the attention 

 of banded poachers, and provoke heartburnings in 

 parishes that ought to be peaceful. Should big battues 

 rank among winter pleasures ? Hardly, in the sense 

 in which we are writing this article ; and poetically as 

 picturesquely, there is a terrible bathos in the droop 

 from days among the ptarmigan in the upper air, to 

 the massacre of pheasants running tame between your 

 boots. Besides, anybody but an enthusiast in slaughter 

 must be ennuye by standing up to the ankles in the 

 half-frozen mud of the rides, or blowing upon numbed 

 fingers at some draughty corner, though he may com- 

 fort himself with the assurance that it will soon be a 

 " hot " one. Far more to our mind is the rough-and- 

 ready fun to be found in ferreting in a keen frost. 

 The little party are all on the qui vive from the 

 guns and the keepers with spades and ferret-boxes, to 

 the cock-eared terriers who are admitted to participate 



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