146 LEAVES FKOM A GAME BOOK. 



but a few shots. Cheerfully consenting, he placed me 

 himself in a spot to which we both knew pheasants 

 rarely broke. The beat began, while, quite contented, 

 I stood watching the birds running past me up to the 

 forward guns. I was in an open space in which, on 

 either side, some forty yards away, big oak-trees shut 

 me out from the guns standing to right and left. The 

 beaters drew level, and had well passed me, when, of a 

 sudden, all the birds in the beat began to fly back over 

 my head and directly between the two trees. I had 

 a right good loader, so at them we went with a will, 

 and in less than ten minutes my hundred cartridges 

 had been blazed away, while hardly any one else fired a 

 shot. This was " taking a back seat " with a vengeance, 

 and I could not help feeling rather shy about the 

 matter ; as, however, the birds were all flying back to a 

 part of the wood already beaten, where they would 

 have been seen no more that day, I did not mind very 

 much. My loader said I got seventy-four, and only 

 two short of that number was gathered, but the firing 

 was so fast, I had no idea myself what the score was. 



