50 PARTRIDGE DAY 



can well foresee what will happen to our sport : 

 tongues will be loosed ; misses will, if possible, in- 

 crease ; and I feel convinced that the partridges will 

 have little to fear from us for this afternoon, at all 

 events. However, we do manage at last to get 

 away by about half-past three or four o'clock, and 

 commence beating a very promising piece of stubble. 

 I have just bagged a hare, and the dogs have been 

 reduced, by dint of much rating, into a state of 

 downcharge whilst I load, when something is heard 

 galloping behind us, and Dick, who had stayed be- 

 hind, as we thought, to fill his powder-flask, appears 

 in the field trying the paces of the tenant's young 

 one. Althoucjh he is well behind the beat, the 

 galloping horse forms a disturbing element to the 

 guns. Dick rides over the low fence at the end, 

 round the next field, and finally returns right 

 in the way of a shot I might have had at a 

 landrail. I don't swear, because T don't approve 

 thereof, and, moreover, am moderate in my temper ; 

 but this is indeed trying, and, to make matters 

 worse, the fellow doesn't appear in the least bit 

 ashamed of himself, but quietly dismounts, feels the 

 legs of the colt carefully down, and, refusing to take 

 his gun from the keepers, remarks that he is tired 

 of missing, and (to my joy) shall go home. A 

 prudent resolve, as he had fired at least twenty or 



