62 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
approach. He fired point-blank into their midst, 
and churned up a terrific cloud of dust. So soon 
as he was able to see anything, he saw that he 
had bagged the whole covey—sixteen. He picked 
up the birds and put them into his pockets, where 
they all revived. None had been hit by the shot. 
They were blinded by the dust. 
The parson, on starting out one day to walk up 
partridges, made a vow in the form of a bet that 
he would bag the first bird he saw. One was soon 
seen, but far out of shot. In the recklessness of 
his despair at the prospect of losing the bet, he 
loosed off. The bird, of course unscathed, flew 
on, but straight into the wall of a cottage. It 
was picked up, duly bagged, and the bet was won. 
The keeper’s story is that he, having been ordered 
to get three brace of partridges for the ‘house,’ had 
failed utterly, owing to the birds’ wildness. He 
was a useful shot at walked-up birds, but simply 
could not look at them when driven; in fact, he 
never had hit a driven bird. However, after he 
and two under-keepers had tramped in vain for 
the best part of a day, it was resolved that they 
could not fare worse by trying a drive. So the 
keeper stationed himself behind a thick hedge, 
while the other two acted as drivers. Soon that 
sweet rumbling as of distant thunder told him 
that a good covey had been flushed. With his 
heart beating like a muffled drum, he listened to 
