MARCH 83 



gives me the jumps. I can't hit a barn-door when he 

 looks at me like that.' 



The fields of Galloway, with their rough oat stubbles, 

 their dusky breadths of potatoes, their ferny glens and 

 whinny knowes, remain as fine dogging ground as ever, 

 but nobody goes after game now in the old manner. In 

 the year 1869 I had a controversy with a neighbouring 

 laird, who had adopted what was then the new mode of 

 driving birds into turnips to be walked up by the guns. 

 He admitted that it was a pity to see pointers going out 

 of fashion, but maintained that they caused a loss of time, 

 and that even a single gun would shoot far more birds 

 without dogs than with them. Thereupon I backed 

 myself against him for a wager. Each of us was to have 

 but one gun, loaded by himself; my rival was to have his 

 birds driven into turnips and walk them up with as many 

 beaters as he chose. I was to work pointers for myself, 

 recovering every bird with my own retriever. It was a 

 near thing. He beat me in his total bag, for he killed 

 several grouse, and I killed only one ; but the match was 

 in partridges, and I beat him in those. I took out three 

 brace of John Pace's pointers, leaving him at home, or the 

 dogs would not have worked for me ; and I ended the day 

 with 61 brace of partridges, my rival running me close 

 with 57| brace. I was tired that night ; for the additional 

 labour of stooping to take 122 birds from the retriever 

 was severer than many people might suppose. 



Reverting to John Pace as my earliest preceptor in 

 sport, how pure and enduring were his precepts. It must 

 always be a matter of luck or chance through whose 

 hands a boy's tastes and habits shall receive their bent ; 

 and no influence is more potent for good or ill than that 



