30 THE COMPLETE SPORTSMAN 



fairer sex at the covertside, and insisted that if 

 they must join the shooters at luncheon, ladies 

 should consent to wear clothes of a sombre hue 

 and control their natural garrulity until the day's 

 sport was over. Lady Biffin, however, whose 

 taste in dress was (if I may say so) somewhat 

 outre, would often appear on the horizon in the 

 middle of a partridge- drive, accompanied by all 

 the other ladies of the house-party, arrayed in a 

 scarlet tam-o'-shanter, a bright yellow golfing 

 " sweater," and a skirt of the Balmoral hunting 

 tartan. Her advent was the signal for every 

 bird on the estate to fly back over the beaters, 

 the keeper's well-laid schemes would (as Burns 

 says) gang agley, and the size of the bag was, in 

 consequence, sensibly diminished; and, of course, 

 her suggestion that if necessary the birds should 

 all be blindfolded, and all unpleasantness thus 

 avoided, was ingenious but impracticable. 



Even when, as the result of her husband's 

 remonstrances, my aunt agreed to don a dark 

 tailor-made coat and skirt and a comparatively 

 silent hat, her practice of talking at the top of 

 her voice to whichever of the guns she happened 

 to be honouring with her company, was scarcely 

 calculated to increase his chances of obtaining 

 good sport. Indeed, the distaste for their 

 hostess's society evinced by my uncle's guests 

 became so marked that some of them have been 



