234 'Th^ Rahhit Battue, 



ance I am very much afraid Mr. Johnson would never have been 

 able to get all the rabbits he wanted 3 for oar farmers, who had but 

 little time or opportunity for practice (keen as they might be) were 

 no great hands with the gun. There is always, in every village, 

 some " ne'er-do-weel/' or other, of a better class than the day 

 labourer — say, for instance, one of the clergyman's five sons, or a 

 young farmer (in a town it is generally a publican or sporting butcher), 

 who seem as if tlie love for a gun was born in them. These men 

 are the keeper's greatest plagues. He can hardly declare a civil 

 war against them as against the regular poachers j but they require 

 continual watching, and cause the keepers as much anxiety and 

 trouble as all the night poachers put together. 



" I tell you what. Master Tom," blurted out Mr. Johnson one day 

 to me (as he burst through a hedge which had hidden him from 

 my view, and caught me in the act of picking up a dead bird out 

 of the ditch, which I had shot on ground where I had a right, but 

 which had unfortunately towered out of bounds), '' if there were 

 three such young scamps as you in the parish, I'd give up my place 

 to-morrow." But it was just such scamps as we whom he was right 

 glad to enhst into his rank at a rabbit battue, and depend upon it 

 we were in the best places somewhere in the middle of the line. 

 This post of honour was of course occupied by Mr. Johnson him- 

 self j and as the spaniels were never far from him, the two men on 

 his right and left hand were sure to get the best shooting. Besides, 

 when we sat down to lunch we used to come in for our share of 

 the same sauce as the farmers, only served up in a different style — 

 something after this wise. 



*'I heard a double shot the other afternoon in old Brown's 

 turnips, but I never came down to see, for I said to Joe : ' Oh, 

 it's only Master Tom killing a couple of rabbits, for I'm sure that 

 he will never meddle with the game after his lordship has so kindly 

 given him leave to shoot the rabbits.' " Or, addressing himself to 

 Mr. Simpson (a sporting publican in the neighbouring town, who 

 had a nasty trick of driving a dog-cart along the high road with one 

 old pointer covered up by the apron, and beating any likely field 



