144 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



his general appearance, my attention was particu- 

 larly attracted by the way in which he presented 

 arms, so to speak. He poised his piece as one 

 would a dart, so that the butt-end of the stock just 

 cleared his right ear. I thought what a nice tap he 

 would get under the ear if the gun were to go off. 

 But what astonished me, since I could see no rabbits 

 moving, was that the man remained for a good 

 five minutes in this extraordinary state of presented 

 arms. At last I made so bold as to ask him if he 

 could see a rabbit. He answered cheerfully : 'Not 

 at this moment, but I saw one quite recently.' In 

 return for this information I gave him a hint on 

 the risk run by his right ear. Curiously enough, 

 the man turned out to be quite harmless, not only 

 to rabbits, but to human beings. After lunch he 

 and I were walking among some dead bracken on 

 either side of a broad grass cart-track. A rabbit 

 was put up, and came at full speed past my colleague 

 at a range of about thirty yards a pretty broadside 

 shot over the green cart-track. Two shots were 

 fired almost as one, and the rabbit turned a summer- 

 sault on the turf. My colleague waved his bowler 

 aloft, saying : * Ah, I knew I'd got that beggar 

 had a fair line on 'im.' I let him revel in the bliss 

 of ignorance. 



I came very near shooting a fellow gun at one 

 of these rabbit shoots. I was standing in a flank 

 ride, after the beaters, interspersed with guns, had 



