WALKING UP 177 
Walsingham at his place, Merton in Norfolk, 
probably the best shooting property for its size in 
England, we were walking up a narrow and rather 
bare field of swedes. A covey rose wild, a long way 
in front, and out of shot of him, and for what reason 
I know not, for there was no half-moon, they turned 
and came back over my head at a good pace. I was 
luckly enough to kill a right and left, not very difficult, 
but satisfactory overhead shots. Poor old Buckle, 
the famous keeper so lovingly remembered in the 
Badminton Library, and by every one who ever shot 
at Merton, was toiling along some twenty yards behind 
me. He had years before been shot in the stomach 
by a poacher, and always went ‘a bit short.’ As the 
two dead birds came clattering down by him, and he 
turned to pick them up, he said to me: ‘ Well, that’s 
a thing I couldn’t ever do so long as I’ve lived, and I 
dessay I’ve seen a deal more shooting than you have, 
too.’ So, no doubt, he had, and from a privileged 
person of his experience a remark in the nature of 
a compliment was nothing but gratifying. 
The hints, suggestions or descriptions, I have 
ventured to give so far on walking up partridges, have 
been, as I said, mainly addressed to those who shoot 
in organised parties on well-preserved estates. But I 
must not neglect my friend B., of whom I spoke above, 
N 
