68 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil. 



Ten or twelve minutes brought us to the cross-road, where two gunners 

 were idling against a gate, smoking the matutinal weed. Captain Charles 

 was a very good fellow home from India on sick leave, who could do many 

 things better than most — thrash a cad, turn over a rocketer, nurse a break 

 well on the green cloth, go across country like an angel with wings 

 (as little Mouser, his admirer, said), speak three languages, give most 

 amateurs a bisque at tennis, and could sing a good song — and write one, 

 too, for that matter. Mouser was a good little chap ; everybody said so ; 

 and, for once, what everybody said was true, though it isn't always by any 

 means. He stuttered slightly, and wore an eyeglass. 



The " mutual " was duly performed, and we were all aware of one 

 another. 



"We'll take this 'ere spinney and hedgerow first. Mr. F. and Cap'n 

 Charles, take each corner of the spinney there ; Muster Raymond and 

 Muster Frederick, take that 'edgerow down; Muster Mouser, take the 

 middle of the spinney, please. One o' you beaters " — to ten or a dozen 

 stick men of the usual stamp — " goo either side of Muster Mouser ; the 

 rest on ye glang on to tha' 'ood an' wait there," 



All this was duly arranged without fuss, noise, or confusion, and this 

 argued well for sport, as nothing is so provoking and so likely to spoil 

 sport as bad generalship and inefficient drilling in this respect. I walked 

 to ray corner, slipping in a brace of gastight greens as I went ; Captain 

 Charles walked to his corner ; little Mouser to the further end with his 

 beaters ; while the Bushes went down the hedgerow with Johnson and his 

 terrier E-at. This hedgerow, like all the hedgerows in these parts, was a 

 good thick one, some thirty or forty feet deep, and pretty close at bottom, 

 with trees at intervals. There was always a stray pheasant or two in these 

 rows, with now and then a brace or two of partridges, an odd hare or two, 

 and a few rabbits. It was pretty work ; indeed, good hedgerow shooting 

 is as pretty as any I know — real jam. Now a rabbit pops out and in 

 again, as the terrier or spaniel threads the runs and bustles them up ; then 

 a hare makes a dash for the open, only to be rolled over and over with a 

 charge of No. 6 in her poll ; anon a cock pheasant, glittering in the 

 sunshine, rises with prodigious emphasis for the last time in his mundane 



