lo SHOOTING AND SALMON FISHING 



panion, he soon showed himself to be something uniquely 

 dangerous in the field. No matter when or where anything 

 rose, shoot at it he must, and did. 



In the first beat he placed the author about forty yards 

 away from him in a bare grass field, outside a small spinney ; 

 a hen pheasant shortly rose from the cover ditch, flying 

 towards us, too low to shoot at, and barely even topping 

 one's head. At that instant, to our horror, mine host was 

 seen making ready to shoot, so discarding all ceremony, we 

 fell flat on the grass, while both his barrels were discharged 

 harmlessly. Astonished and enraged at his proceedings, we 

 nevertheless jumped up and killed the bird as it was going 

 away, and then, not being on sufficiently intimate terms to 

 swear at him, a bolt was made over the stile, where, meeting 

 the next gun, we told him what had happened. He laughed, 

 and only said, " Dear me, how wrong of us all to forget 

 there was a stranger out ; we ought to have warned you. 

 Well ! he always does it ! No good saying anything ; but 

 none of us who know him ever go near him, and don't you ! " 



This was not very pleasant hearing, the more so as the 

 host shordy joined us, saying he hoped he had not fired a 

 dangerous shot, but really he had not seen me in the least ; 

 and this was most courteously put, although we had stood 

 in a bare grass field hardly forty yards apart! 



He then invited us to follow him, saying there would be 

 a good few birds this time, and we could again stand next 

 to each other. Not knowing how to escape, we obeyed 

 orders, soon reaching the fatal corner to stand as before. 

 It was as plain as possible that if we did not mean to be 

 hit, the only chance of safety was in never taking eyes 

 off this dangerous host. 



The beat began, and again a pheasant rose in front of 

 us, but the first flutter of the wings was a signal for us to 

 take a seat on the fallow. Again our friend wasted his 

 cartridges, and once more we were up in time to make a 



