BEATERS AND STOPS 223 



her that her place was by a gate at a certain corner 

 of a certain wood, and that she was to go straight 

 there, and stay there, till the beaters came just 

 before lunch-time to take the beat near which she 

 would be standing. I asked her whether she quite 

 understood, and offered to send someone to put her 

 in position. She broke into such a torrent of 

 scornful remarks, to the effect that if she did not 

 know the gate after being about so many years, she 

 'didn't know nothinV Well, on this old dame 

 depended the success of the final beat of the wood. 

 I had expected to find eighty to a hundred pheasants 

 in that beat : there were only a score. Nor did I 

 see any more of the woman till after lunch, when 

 we had gone to another covert, half a mile away. 

 She calmly told me that she thought it c didn't make 

 much odds where she went so long as she didn't get 

 shot.' Once two very small boys, holding each other 

 by the hand, came to me the evening before a shoot 

 and said, ' Please, keeper, do you want any more 

 shooters ?' 



Beaters' strikes are not unknown. Of course, if 

 your beaters are town wastrels, who never have done 

 any beating before, and expect to stroll about 

 casually for an hour or so armed with a silver- 

 topped cane, to feed on truffles stewed in champagne, 

 and to receive the bulk of the bag in addition to the 

 pay of a music-hall star, then you may expect any- 

 thing. But when there is a strike among genuine 



