BEATERS AND STOPS 221 
and produced one of his cartridges, suggesting that 
I should try it. I saw at once that it was of a 
special make that had been used by one shooter 
only during the previous season, and I remembered 
who had carried his bag. 
Once, while we were having lunch, I heard one 
beater giving another a most graphic description of 
the recent history of a rabbit, which, it seemed, had 
remained seated almost till the narrator had trodden 
on it; perhaps since the question, ‘Why hasn’t thee 
knock’d un down, then?’ cast aspersion on his 
personal dexterity, he replied warmly, ‘Why, I 
never sid un afore ’e was out o’ sight.’ One of my 
beaters, who neither could read nor write, might 
have made a cautious lawyer. He had seen three 
pheasants fall, and as the gun who had shot them 
seemed very anxious to let everyone know that they 
were dead as rags, I told the man to go and fetch 
them. Upon my reminding him that he knew 
exactly where they were, he said: ‘I knows where 
they ought to be.’ And my old dog eventually had 
the satisfaction of justifying this cautious admission 
by fetching one of the birds from the far end of the 
wood. 
Beaters are great and good critics of shooting. 
I have known beaters to be so confident in the 
ability of their favourite shooting hero as to wager 
beer by the quart, and even by the gallon, on his 
superiority over some admittedly useful rival. 
