CHAPTER XVI. 



THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER. 



PROBABLY there is no date in the whole year which 

 is looked forward to by so large a number of English 

 gunners of every class as the first of September. It 

 is only a small number of us who own, or are invited 

 to, grouse moors in Scotland or Yorkshire, and, unless 

 local circumstances are favourable to water-fowl and 

 provide us with duck-shooting, the probability is that 

 the last days of August find us eagerly waiting for our 

 first chance of " killing something." 



Not that " the First " is quite the day it used to 

 be in our fathers' time. If we turn to that delightful 

 book, " Harry Coverdale's Courtship," we find the 

 hero getting up so as to start at five o'clock on that 

 eventful morning, and remaining absent all day, only 

 returning after dark to display his bag. It is doubtful 

 if any sportsmen are now to be found at work at 

 daylight on the First. I certainly never was, though 

 I have been twice out shooting in England at daylight. 

 The first time was to skim the cream of the duck- 

 shooting on an unpreserved lake. Unfortunately the 

 sun rose, or rather did not rise, in a thick mist, and 

 when that cleared away there were no less than twelve 



