106 CHAPTER XVI. 



the left flank guns were placed with their backs to a village, their 

 faces to a hedge, which lay along the road with a hedge on either side, 

 and turnip fields beyond. The beaters came from the far side of the 

 turnip field and the way those birds would whip over the hedges and so 

 close to the houses that one could not fire was a caution. 



Astonishing how rapidly these little partridges could move after the 

 start they got by breaking cover a hundred yards or more from the 

 guns, and it was still more astonishing to see the way those English- 

 men and Scotchmen handled their two double-barreled guns. 



They actually would get four shots off so quickly that the sound 

 was like that made by four shots from an automatic. There are 

 English shots so expert that they can get in six shots and kill six 

 birds out of a driven covey of partridges. That seems incredible, but 

 I am assured by men whose veracity is unimpeachable that it has been 

 done and that those who told me have seen it done. 



For my part, I saw some of these men kill four partridges out of a 

 covey. Doing my very best and trying the most I could, the best I 

 ever did, compass was three. One in front and two behind. A suc- 

 cessful Englishman on a quartet of birds will get two in front and two 

 behind. They certainly are fast birds as anyone will acknowledge who 

 has tried them. 



We lunched on the third day of Norfolk shooting on the sweet turf 

 near a big wood, and just before dark the Chief and I hustled into a 

 motor and started on a fifty-two mile journey to the nearest point at 

 which we could intercept the Scotch express. 



Our lights were not very good and our head light was truly shock- 

 ingly inefficient. We got off the road once or twice and we had the 

 usual experiences incident to night travel in a strange country, but we 

 did not turn turtle and we were in a land where every man was willing 

 to give information about the roads if he had it, so we finally drew 

 into our station in plenty of time for a good, comfortable, leisurely 

 dinner before the night train took us up for Scotland. 



A friend of mine told me since I came back to this country of a thing 

 which struck him while motoring in England. He said in some thou- 

 sands of miles of such travel he never found a single constable or po- 

 liceman who did not know the way to any place he was asked about. 

 Besides, it seemed to come straight off the bat, as if he had been 



