134 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 
the best place of the best drive, nor always in your 
best form when you are there, and forty partridges in 
one drive falls not to a man’s lot more than a few 
times in his life. 
How different it is when on some other day you 
are on the flank, when birds are scarcer, and such as 
come stream persistently to the other end of the line ; 
when gales blow and waiting is long, when raindrops 
stand like beads on the barrel of your gun, drip from 
the back of your cap on to the chilled marrow of your 
spinal column, and trickle chilly from the wrist to 
the elbow of your forward arm ;—when through numb- 
ness of fingers and genefal want of circulation you have 
missed the only two shots you have had for an hour ; 
when the drivers have hardly energy to walk or shout, 
cloyed as their progress is by their dripping smocks ; 
when, as the storm grows blacker in the north-west, 
there is nothing before you but one more dreary drive, 
in which your position on the other flank will give 
you no chance to retrieve your temperature or your 
reputation, and then a long soaking walk home of 
three or four miles, which you, being at the farthest 
point from home, are left to share with the only one 
of your party in whose society you take no pleasure, 
depressed, disappointed, damp, and, worst of all, 
defeated. 
