MY FIRST SHOOT 27 



months of hard labour. I had worked, as it were, 

 day and night in the cause of partridges. With 

 infinite care I had bushed and watched the favourite 

 roosting parts, although there was no great likeli- 

 hood of netting. Still, I grew more determined 

 than ever as the days of reckoning drew near not 

 to let slip what reward might be mine. The first 

 day's shooting was fixed for the second of Septem- 

 ber, so I decided to put in the whole of the last 

 night of August in the field with my partridges. 

 I even made a vow to forgo the consolation of my 

 pipe, for fear of giving away my presence. My 

 object was not to scare poachers, but to catch them, 

 so that I might appear early in the morning of the 

 First with a heavy and perfectly legitimate bag. 



I set out about half-past seven, after a mixture 

 of tea and supper, taking further supplies of food 

 in my pocket. I took with me also an old-fashioned 

 cloth-faced mackintosh of the Inverness pattern 

 (which, on acquiring a * Burberry/ I sold for half 

 a crown). The earlier part of that night was not 

 so bad, though there was no suggestion of balmi- 

 ness in the air. Things grew worse. It began 

 to rain and blow. For hours and hours I walked 

 about in the darkness in the cold, the wet, and 

 the wind. It was not possible to see much, while 

 as for hearing well, I could hear enough to make 

 me think anything was happening. A mouse 

 rustling in a hedge ; a straw swaying and grating 



