28 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
on a thistle-stem; the passage of a rat from one 
rick to another; the call of peewits; the rush of 
a hurrying hare—there were dozens of sounds 
which by day would have passed unheeded, but 
then were absurdly magnified and garbled by my 
straining ears. 
Once, while I was sheltering by a heap of straw 
on the edge of an old cartway, I felt certain that 
I could hear the crunching sound of men’s feet 
coming toward me. By Jove! didn’t my heart 
thump. But no partridge-netters came to break 
the dreariness of that dark, cheerless night. I 
never discovered the cause of my disappointment, 
though to this day I am sure I heard the stealthy 
tramp of human feet, possibly the ghostly feet of 
dead poachers. And so for that night passed the 
sole prospect of covering myself with glory and 
bespattered brains, and, incidentally, of getting 
warm. Morning seemed as if it never were coming. 
Long ago I had eaten the last crumb of food, and 
felt I would have paid a premium price for the top 
of a loaf. At least two solid supplementary meals 
aré required to carry one through a night. As 
there was now no likelihood of netters—for whom 
to tell the honest truth, I had become quite sick of 
waiting—lI sought shelter and less cold by crouching 
against the lee-side of a corn-rick. But everything 
was dripping wet, and the wind seemed to be 
playing a game of blind-man’s buff round that rick ; 
