50 BRITANNY AND THE CHASE. 



heavily hit. Mark ! and thej skimmed away over a large 

 vs^ood opposite to us. Bad job that ! we shall never find 

 them in that wood. Suddenlij they disaiDpeared : ah! ah! 

 gentlemen, I have ye. We entered the wood, and in the 

 middle discovered a beautiful patch of fern and low bushes 

 of about an acre. Here are the birds, but we must beat 

 close. As I spoke one rose at the edge of the wood flying 

 badly as having been hit, and I brought him down ; but as 

 I fired the rest rose also, one after the other, in provoking 

 regularity, and all out of distance, nor could we afterwards 

 find them. The truth was we had given them too little 

 time to scatter among the fern. A Frenchman w^ould have 

 looked at his watch and sat dow^n for ten minutes ; and had 

 I done so I might have secured all. In traversing the 

 wood the dog sniffed about in a puzzled way. I thought 

 it was a snake and looked round, when a bris^ht eve lookincp 

 out of a tuft of grass steadily met mine. " Soho ! come 

 in, Ponto." It was difficult to deal with her in the thicket, 

 on the edge of which she lay, but there was a little glade 

 on the side, in which I should have a chance, if I could 

 make her take that way. I moved quietly on one side and 

 touched her with my foot, Ithuriel's spear was not more 

 effectual to rouse the apparently sleeping mass, and out she 

 bounced with a vengeance, and darted up the glade like 

 lightning. But faster sped the leaden hail, and in a se- 

 cond puss was stretched upon the grass. 



A cock or two were flushed by the dogs, but out of sight ; 

 and on leaving the wood we came on to a wide valley, 

 wooded on each side, and with a stream and strip of meadow 

 in the middle. ^^ Woodcocks here if anywhere," and so it 



