248 Ikings of tbe 1Rofc, 1Rifle t att& (Bun 



everything was fair, still, by mere chance birds rose more 

 favourably for him than for me, and in the course of the 

 match he got eleven more shots than I did ; the conse- 

 quence was that at one time he was seven birds ahead of 

 me. About two o'clock I saw evident signs of the Colonel 

 having near about * pumped ' himself. .' The Old Squire ' 

 rode up to me, and said, * Ross, go along ; he'll lie down 

 directly and die ' he fancied he was viewing a beaten 

 fox. I was thus able to go right away from the 

 Colonel ; and as the birds were so wild (in consequence 

 of the crowd and noise) that few shots were got nearer 

 than fifty or sixty yards, I gradually made up my 

 1 lee-way.' 



A quarter of an hour before the expiration of the 

 time Mr. Charles Greville and Colonel Francis Russell 

 rode up to me and said Colonel Anson was unable to 

 walk any more, but that he was one bird ahead of me, 

 and that Lord de Ros had authorised them to propose 

 to me to make it a drawn match. I had a great deal 

 of money depending on the result (about 1,000), and 

 had not had a shot for the last ten minutes, so, after 

 a moment's consideration, I came to the conclusion that 

 at that late hour, when the birds were all out of the 

 turnips and feeding in the stubble, it was too great a 

 sum to risk on the chance of getting a brace of birds 

 in a quarter of an hour. I therefore agreed to make it 

 a drawn match. 



I was as fresh as when I started ; and in the 

 excitement of the moment, and perhaps a little 

 anxious to show that I was not beaten, I said to 

 the assembled multitude (about five to six hundred 



