

AN OLD SPORTSMAN. 63 



playing upon her quivering nostrils, when she 

 came close upon her bird. The youngsters 

 were not, of course, faultless ; but in Uncle 

 Joe's hands they either became so, or were 

 dismissed our service. He hated flogging a 

 dog. Flogging a dull stupid dog is quite as 

 much a labour of supererogation, as Johnson 

 would call it, as whipping a dull boy to make 

 him clever. 



A thin grey frost has fallen on the ground. 

 The sky is blue and cloudless. Far off you 

 see the saw-like edges of the Tipperary range, 

 with that gap in the jaw of one hill which the 

 devil is said to have made in a bite. The 

 smoke from the cabins goes straight up into 

 the air in a column like the rush of water from 

 a fountain. The fields, the moors, are wonder- 

 fully, sadly still and silent ; but we have come 

 out to kill something. The dogs are already 

 at work, for business opens at the immediate 

 rear of the Wisp. My uncle, in his shooting- 

 coat of many pockets, is inhaling draughts of 

 the grand morning breeze, with a wonderful 

 glow of satisfaction in his ripe cheeks. The 

 dogs run back to him for a word of encourage- 



