Long Tails and Short Ones. 



career; or a brace of cunning old birds, whose brood has gone astray 

 somehow by reason of cats or other vermin, skim out towards the distant 

 mangold they are never destined to reach. 



Meantime I have ensconced myself behind an Irish yew bush, on either 

 side of which I can command the spinney. Now I hear Mouser coming 

 down from the far end, and the " tap, tap ' of the beaters. A pigeon 

 comes whistling through the tree tops. They always come first— wary 

 dogs ; and, as he can't see me, I double him up neatly. Then Mouser 

 speaks. " Bang !" A bunny come to grief, I take it. " Mark !" — bang ! — 

 " mark forward !" I hear the flutter of wings, and the next minute Captain 

 Charles is heard from. There is a crash in the bushes, and no more 

 flutter of wings. "Eirst longtail !" "mark!" bang! and Mouser evidently 

 scores one. " Mark forrard to the right !" and a pheasant comes rocketing 

 over the larches. I am not quite as good at a rocketer as at some other 

 things, and don't pitch quite far enough forward with the first; but the 

 second fetches him, and down he comes like a bean bag. " Hare forrard 

 to the right !" Bang ! bang ! Jeerusalem ! Mouser missed- him. " Hare 

 forrard !" I peep round the corner and see puss coming down the hedge 

 like an express train with a kick in it. I wait quietly until she is within 

 thirty yards, when just as I finger the trigger she pops short into the 

 plantation again, " Hare to the left !" I shout, and the next moment 

 Captain Charles speaks again. And so the fun goes on for a few minutes 

 longer, the tapping and rustling coming closer, till I see little Mouser 

 pushing aside the bushes in a bit of thick close at hand. A rabbit or 

 two have been added to the score, and the spinney has produced three 

 pheasants, a hare and four rabbits, and the pigeon. Meantime our friends 

 at the hedgerow have not been idle, and, with the assistance of Johnson and 

 Rat the dog, have bagged a brace of pheasants, an old cock partridge, three 

 rabbits, and a hare. Not so bad for a beginning, especially as nothing 

 to speak of has got away. Then we go on to Timwillows, a low scrubby 

 cover, with a withy bed adjoining, and standing round the withy bed at 

 judicious intervals (for it is too thick to shoot in), we wait the beaters. 



" Please shoot all the rabbits you can, gents, as the tenant complains 

 o' their barkin' the sets. I says as it's rats; he says 'taint." And here. 



