WALKING UP 149 



I say, to go on denying himself what suits him best, 

 and to drive his ground because it is the fashion. He 

 may be the owner of a good partridge estate, where 

 he, his keepers, farmers and labourers are all on good 

 terms, and the head of game is consequently always 

 up to a certain average. He and his guests, and his 

 father, and grandfather, and their guests, may have 

 been able from time immemorial to kill eighty or 

 a hundred brace of birds to four or five guns, while 

 the keepers and beaters aforesaid may have inherited 

 the traditions and perfected the knowledge which 

 three generations of good sportsmen and loyal servants 

 have handed down. 



Such an one should not be cavilled at, nor con- 

 sidered to be behind the times because he prefers 

 walking to driving his partridges, and some of his 

 friends will find that he can teach a thing or two to 

 those who devote themselves exclusively to the latter 

 form of sport. 



Again, he may have a fancy for breeding retrievers, 

 or may have a boy or boys, fresh from Eton or 

 Harrow, for whom it is his great pleasure to find 

 amusement, and his great ambition that they should 

 turn out good all-round sportsmen. Here again he will 

 be quite right to walk up his partridges. A retriever 

 who has not been broken to heel, and to stick to a 



