176 SHOOTING THE GROUSE 



part in them, and to be absolutely incomprehensible 

 to those who have not. 



Many a time, in other parts of England or in 

 Scotland, have I felt that it would be wiser to be silent 

 concerning these phenomenal deeds, and that my 

 character for veracity or honesty would never survive 

 the relation of even half what I had often seen. I 

 have never forgotten a les*son I received when, as 

 a youth at a private tutor's in Oxfordshire, I used 

 to be asked to take a laborious part in the slaying 

 of from ten to twenty brace of partridges in the com- 

 pany of seven or eight old farmers. I had returned 

 to my tutor's after the summer holidays, during 

 which I had been fortunate enough to be allowed 

 to take a gun in a day or two's grouse driving on 

 the moors of Mr. Walter Stanhope at Dunford 

 Bridge. When the Oxfordshire farmers asked me 

 where I had been, I said ' grouse driving.' This con- 

 veyed very little to them, but one of them lazily asked 

 what sort of a bag we had made. I naively replied 

 the truth, from 150 to 170 brace each day. We had 

 just finished lunch, and our morning's bag of 7^ brace 

 of partridges and a hare was proudly laid out near us. 

 But this reply of mine cast a gloom over everything, 

 and one of these sandy-haired, beefy-faced veterans 

 laid his hand on my shoulder and said, ' Ah, young 



