I40 Ralph Duckworth of the Wild Farm, 



old-fashioned straggling order, affording plenty of shelter, 

 and the cover invariably being good. On these occasions 

 v^e are expected to take lunch at the farm (to bring our 

 own grub would cause dire offence, you may be sure) ; 

 and, seeing that the lunch is always of a most substantial 

 nature, finishing up with dessert, and port wine of a fruity 

 character, combined with a good deal of body, and of 

 which you are almost in duty bound to partake, it may be 

 easily imagined, that after lunch we feel much more 

 inclined to sit down under a hedge and smoke a cigar, 

 than to tramp the fields after partridges. Knowing, 

 therefore, what we have to expect on these occasions, we 

 take very good care to get well into our birds before one 

 o'clock. The name of Ralph Duckworth will always be 

 green in our memory, if it was only for one circumstance. 

 We were riding one hot September afternoon along a 

 bridle-road that went through his farm, when to our 

 astonishment we suddenly saw the farmer himself, 

 attended by one of his men, working a turnip-field, gun 

 in hand. 



Transfixed with astonishment we pulled up. By-and- 

 by he saw us, and walked up. '^ I'm uncommon glad to 

 see you," said he, "for I've got a friend coming down 

 from town to-night, and I want a brace of partrid- 

 ges very bad. So I took this old gun of mine, and 

 started out, but, lor' bless you, I can't hit 'em, how- 

 ever hard I look at 'em. Will you get off your pony, 

 and kill us a brace? I shall take it so wery kind if you 

 will ? " 



This was an appeal impossible to resist, so down we 

 got, and proceeded to handle the old gun. It was a queer, 

 old-fashioned- looking weapon, but well balanced, and very 



