60 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



let me have a shot at the pigeons. She accepted the 

 offer, and I waited till a number of pigeons were on the 

 roof of one of the buildings and fired into the midst of 

 them. My recollection is that five were killed, but the 

 diary says three anyhow I went home in triumph with 

 the spoils, but was not commended for what I had done. 



That same year I was out with the gun and accompanied 

 by an old servant of ours, Mary Ridsdale by name I 

 suppose it was thought I needed looking after. I marked 

 a blackbird into a hedge and went there to kick it up. 

 There was a scurry of wings as a bird suddenly rose and 

 flew away. I fired at it almost automatically, and down 

 it came. Not till then did I see that it was a partridge. 

 Moreover, I had no game certificate and it was not the 

 shooting season. Various men with carts were passing 

 on the road hard by. Worst of all, the partridge was a 

 runner and we had no dog with us. 



I felt I had committed some awful crime, and so did 

 Mary Ridsdale. The game laws were really serious in 

 those days, and I fully believed that the men on the road 

 would inform the police about what they had seen. All 

 the same I went back to the village and found Tom 

 Palliser, who chanced to be sober, and told him about 

 the partridge, whereupon he went with me and a useful 

 terrier to the fatal spot. The terrier hunted up and 

 down the nearest ditch and soon found the bird, which 

 we took home, but Tom Palliser meanly told my father 

 the story, and as a result I was informed, just before going 

 to bed, that a policeman had come inquiring for me. 

 This I implicitly believed, but was soon put out of my 

 misery. It is a trivial story, but it is that of my first 

 partridge, and I suppose it is ordinary human weakness 

 that causes me to dwell on such a subject. 



My alarm at the prospect of being brought before the 

 Thirsk magistrates for shooting the partridge had been 

 considerably increased by the fact that the chairman of 

 those magistrates, a somewhat pompous gentleman named 

 Lloyd, had been much incensed a week or two earlier 



