66 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil. 



with strident voice, announced "Down train coming in. Passengers 

 for Chipwax "before — passengers for Kingscote behind ;" and the next 

 minute Raymond Bush turned out of his cell in full shooting tog, followed 

 by his brother Fred. A fly was waiting ; we tumbled in, and drove four 

 pleasant miles across to Wingham Willows, where he and his brother rented 

 some 3000 acres of fine covert and partridge ground judiciously mixed. 

 " Now," said Raymond, as we drove up to a very snug cottage, with every 

 convenience adjacent, " if that blackguard Fipps is only out of the way — 

 and he ought to be, as it's Snigswig market day — we shall have a perfect 

 day." 



" Who's Fipps ? " I asked. 



" The poachingest cuss in this country ; he's a farmer who rents 

 about three hundred acres, that run in and out with our coverts in a 

 way that is simply infernal. He won't let us the shooting, having a 

 sort of spite against my landlord, and I do believe he shoots nearly as 

 much in his three hundred as we do in our three thousand. There's no 

 having him anyhow. He won't be friendly ; he won't do anything but 

 shoot — and, d — n him ! he can shoot some— and he has a familiar 

 demon in the shape of a rat-tailed, mute-hunting, ragged-haired spaniel, 

 half Clumber, half Norfolk, with a touch of Scotch terrier and a wipe 

 of retriever in him, that's a worse poacher than himself. That dog 

 Sir, that dog is a sort of Snarley-yow or dog-fiend, he is diabolic ; no game 

 has a chance with him. The pair of 'em are enough to give a fellow the 

 horrors. Why, I'm something' d but he made me pay him 10^. com- 

 pensation last year for damage to his buckwheat, because I was weak 

 enough to put a hatch of squeaker pheasants down in Chizzel Copse 

 near his beastly ' nine acres,' every blessed head of which he shot in 

 that very buckwheat, planted there for that purpose ; " and Raymond 

 looked at me with the air of a desperately injured individual, and I 

 confess that he had reason. 



" But why did you pay ?" I asked; "it was a gross swindle." 



" Why ? Because I didn't want the expense and worry of a law-suit, 

 with the certainty of having a jury of his friends at Snigswig against me 

 jis a consequence. In this free and enlightened country, sir, any blackguard 



