230 THE GROUSE 



few days, but, with ordinary eyesight, 

 guns that fit you and keenness to learn, 

 it can only be a question of time ; the 

 issue is beyond doubt. 



You may never, perhaps, be able to 

 take your right and left out of a covey 

 going fifty or sixty miles an hour down- 

 wind, — a feat to accomplish which with 

 any certainty is reserved for the happy 

 few who have the natural advantages of 

 hand, eye, and arm working in perfect 

 unison. 



But, without soaring to such heights, 

 you may feel assured that, despite initial 

 failures, you will, with a little practice, 

 soon attain to the moderate standard 

 where most of us have to be perforce 

 content to remain, able to kill your fair 

 share of the bag under normal conditions. 



Only too well can the writer recall the 

 bitter disappointments which attended his 

 own maiden efforts at driven grouse. 

 Mr. Archibald Stuart- Wortley's charm- 

 ing work on the grouse was then fresh 

 from the press, and how eagerly he 



