THE MOOR 183 



very prevalent fashion be permitted to continue, of 

 allowing the butts to take care of themselves, or leaving 

 their repair to any energetic or practical hands that may 

 exist among the "guns." How often, oh, how often! 

 have we found ourselves crouching behind a small turf 

 dyke, or in badly built, tumbled down, draughty, rakish- 

 looking butts, flooded with three or four inches of water, 

 from which we had to go scouring the land for stray 

 slabs of peat or heather hummocks on which to kneel, 

 for in no other fashion could we hide from view our 

 cold and restless bodies. How we have shivered and 

 groaned in these pits of stupidity and gross carelessness 

 built probably in the early seventies, and instead of 

 growing dignified in their old age, sinking to a miserable 

 decay under the dissipations of accident and weather. 

 If we are not to have newly built, newer fashioned butts, 

 then, in the name of all that is decent, let the keeper or 

 his men patch up and drain the old ones, and save the 

 " guns" from acute rheumatism, pneumonia, or shattered 

 tempers. Let the "guns" at least have a chance of 

 doing even their second best. 1 1 is on moors that are let 

 to shooting tenants for short periods that such immoral 

 neglect of duty chiefly prevails. Often it is the owner 

 himself that is to blame. He knows he will have little 

 difficulty in letting his shooting, and if he is not a keen 

 or unselfish sportsman he is never particularly anxious 

 for a lengthy lease of his moor. Accordingly in such 

 cases the duties of a keeper are often allowed to slacken 

 to an appalling extent, and in the decline of the sense of 



