134 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 



the best place of the best drive, nor always in your 

 best form when you are there, and forty partridges in 

 one drive lalls not to a man's lot more than a few 

 times in his life. 



How different it is when on some other day you 

 are on the flank, when birds are scarcer, and such as 

 come stream persistently to the other end of the line ; 

 when gales blow and waiting is long, when raindrops 

 stand like beads on the barrel of your gun, drip from 

 the back of your capon to the chilled marrow of your 

 spinal column, and trickle chilly from the wrist to 

 the elbow of your forward arm ; when through numb- 

 ness of fingers and general want of circulation you have 

 missed the only two shots you have had for an hour ; 

 when the drivers have hardly energy to walk or shout, 

 cloyed as their progress is by their dripping smocks ; 

 when, as the storm grows blacker in the north-west, 

 there is nothing before you but one more dreary drive, 

 in which your position on the other flank will give 

 you no chance to retrieve your temperature or your 

 reputation, and then a long soaking walk home of 

 three or four miles, which you, being at the farthest 

 point from home, are left to share with the only one 

 of your party in whose society you take no pleasure, 

 depressed, disappointed, damp, and, worst of all, 

 defeated. 



