THAT SHELDEAKE. 



Somehow or other^ I almost tliink I like those '' odd 

 days " at the end of the shooting season better than the 

 regular " slaughters ; " there is a freedom and ease about 

 them that one does not get in battues or grouse driving ; 

 one is not eternally thinking of the weight of one^s bag 

 or fearing lest some one should '' wipe your eye." To 

 thoroughly enjoy these odd days^ they must be unpre- 

 meditated ; like the meeting of two old friends,, " when 

 least expected, enjoyed the most/' When My Lord 

 Broadacres sends his compliments to me, and requests 

 the pleasure of my attendance at his battue to-morrow, 

 the first thing of course is to say to my man, '^ Thompson, 

 put mj dress clothes in my bag," and I instinctively 

 wonder whether my shooting suit of last year is decent 

 enough to appear in. After all said and done, that 

 battue shooting is not so bad a recreation. Some one 

 in the Field the other day said that those men who talk 

 about '^give me a day of walking up partridges before 

 all your battues," &c., almost invariably manoeuvre for 

 a '^hot" corner, and go in for a little indiscriminate 

 slaughter. By the powers they do ; I remember being 

 at a rook-shooting party once ; one of the guns at break- 

 fast told me, quite confidentially, ^' Well, you know, this 

 is all very well in its way, you understand, but for my 

 part, it lacks the element of sport, sir — quite lacks it." 

 I of course shot with a rifle, as nearly all the others did, 

 as it was not a large rookery ; but merciful heavens ! 



