VERBUM SAP. 245 
. he had drained a horn of ale, ‘Eh, sir, but that went 
doon ma throat laike a band o’ music.’ Truly a ‘nice 
derangement of epitaphs’—after which we all set to 
work again with a will, and made a good bag. 
An all-round liberality in the matter of game I 
look upon as absolutely essential. It is not enough to 
present a farmer once a year with a hare and a brace of 
birds, especially when he has loyally supported and 
protected the game on his farm. The old-fashioned 
tenant-farmer on a generously conducted estate used 
to take a pride in the head of game killed on his land, 
loved to walk with the landlord and his friends to see 
the shooting, and was allowed to take away practically 
as much as he could carry home, after shaking hands 
with the party all round. This condition of things 
happily exists still in some places, and where it does 
exist the shooting is usually good. Close-fisted 
people cannot, however, be prevented from owning 
or renting land, though they live to learn that mean 
or avaricious treatment of men on whom their sport 
greatly depends is never rewarded by a plentiful stock 
of game. 
I think I hear some captious readers say, ‘Is 
shooting, then, to be confined entirely to the very 
wealthy?’ My answer would be, on large estates 
and where big bags are desired, wxdoudtedly, and it 
