144 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



every bird, as he brings ifc down, on the sheet of paper a 

 cross for dead birds and a dot for probable runners, this 

 record being handed over to the keepers when they come 

 up ; an arrangement, I fear, which though it may read well 

 enough, would need a shooter as many-minded as Csesar to 

 carry out in the heat of the fight. By the time the sun high 

 up in the sky points to a little past midday, being all more 

 than ready for lunch, we seek, a sheltered nook, cut deep 

 through the moor by the ceaseless labours of a sparkling 

 streamlet, where, on a broad, sunny rock well out of the 

 wind, we find luncheon spread and our host's charming 

 daughter in the neatest and most reasonable of costumes 

 ready to welcome us, while the big mastiff at her side makes 

 hill and valley echo to his sonorous baying until a sign from 

 his mistress's hand informs him we are lawful intruders, 

 when he forthwith subsides into the heather. 



It is by no means the worst part of the day ; the provender 

 is ample and varied, cold grouse pies, flanked by such salads- 

 as must surely have grown in celestial kitchen gardens, 

 a sirloin of the finest stalled beef, pastry of fairy light- 

 ness, unimpeachable drink that, when accepted in foaming 

 tankards from the fair fingers of our fascinating Hebe, 

 becomes quite ambrosial. We linger, too, over the choice 

 cheroots which our host passes round after the meal ; thus 

 careless of time until the edges of the purple shadows creep- 

 ing up the opposite hillside warn us that autumn days are 

 all too short for much idleness, so we see the " mem sahib ' r 

 .to her pony carriage in the neighbouring lane and then are 

 soon hard at work once more. 



The first wait afternoon is a long one, the keepers and 

 beaters seeming to have lunched as well as we have and to 

 be rather lazy ; however, we are contented and sit calmly in 

 our shelters, our guns across our knees and the position of 

 each man down the long line of grey wall marked by a tiny 

 curl of tobacco smoke ascending in the still air, for the 

 morning breeze had died out as it often does in the latter 



