THE GLORIOUS TWELFTH 



THE very true remark has been made that the 

 shooting of grouse is not the whole of grouse - 

 shooting. It is merely, so to speak, the title 

 element in a festival which derives extraordinary 

 favour from the fact that it follows a prolonged 

 fast. There are, no doubt, many of those who, on 

 the 1 2th of August, step out upon the springy 

 purple heather to whom the pursuit of the red 

 grouse is merely one in a ceaseless succession of 

 sports in which salmon, trout, grouse, deer, 

 pheasant, and salmon again are the quarry. But 

 to the great majority of grouse -shooters the 

 Twelfth is the beginning of the abrupt and 

 pleasant change from labour in the Senate, in the 

 Law Courts, and in the office, which thins the 

 blood and dulls the eye, to the irresponsible con- 

 tact with Nature, which is the supreme restorer 

 of vitality to tired tissues. Hence its favour. 

 If partridge -shooting began on the Twelfth and 

 grouse-shooting on the ist of September, the 

 Twelfth would still be the great day, though per- 

 haps not quite the great day that it is. For who 

 will dispute that the virtue of contact with Nature 

 is a more potent virtue on a far -stretching moor- 

 land than on a well-shaven stubble? In the 



