FOREST AND STREAM 
[Oct.. 7, 1905. 
294 
Long Tails and Short Ones* 
This story, by the late Francis Francis, is here reprinted from 
the “Sporting Sketches” as a graphic picture of one phase of sport 
in Great Britain. It is characterized throughout by the heartiness, 
sprightliness and sentiment which marked Mr. Francis’ outdoor 
sketches. 
Who does not recollect his first pheasant? I don’t 
mean the first he bags, but the first he shoots at, be- 
cause nine times in ten he contrives to score a miss, 
or he bags half of a tail feather, or something of that 
sort. To an unaccustomed gunner, or one who has pre- 
viously only seen small game, the rise of an old cock 
pheasant is something prodigious. He shines so, he 
makes such a row, and vanishes from your gaze so 
speedily as you look after him, that it produces very 
much the effect which it did upon old Briggs when he 
flushed one for the first time, namely, a sort of sen- 
sation as if an ornithological Catherine-wheel had com- 
busted almost under his nose. The ordinary observer, 
who sees pheasants get up and fly away, wonders how 
you could possibly miss such a great big lumbering 
bird as that; but put the ordinary observer in a corner 
where the trees are pretty close, or in a narrow ride 
with a five or six years’ growth on it, and with a lot of 
strong, wild, rocketting pheasants processing to and 
fro overhead and around, and he will wonder no longer, 
unless he changes round, and begins to wonder how 
you can hit him. There is one great thing to remem- 
ber in pheasant shooting, and that is to hold far enough 
forward, and that is the difficulty. A pheasant well on 
the wing goes a tremendous pace, and unless you pitch 
the gun a foot or two or more, according to distance 
and pace, in front, you will be exactly that distance be- 
hind the bird when the shot reaches his distance. Of 
course, the further the bird is off, and the faster he is 
going, the further in front must you pitch your gun to 
get on him; and it is the instinctive calculation of eye 
and hand in this particular that makes the good pheas- 
ant shot. It is astonishing, sometimes, how dead a 
bird will come over when you have pointed as you 
thought perhaps almost too far in front. You may 
kill any number of birds hand running flying away from 
you, unless they are rising at the same time, as they 
mostly are, when you must shoot high; but aiming 
across or over it is another pair of boots. 
I shot one the other day. I am ashamed to say that 
he was something like sixty yards off; but it was 
rather an experiment. He was harking back and 
coming down the middle of the wood well above the 
hazels forty miles an hour, and apparently had dodged 
all the guns. I was standing on an open, high bit, and 
could see well over the bushes. My gun shoots very 
close and hard, and I determined to try for him; and I 
pitched the gun about four feet or so in front of him. 
I thought at the time it was too far, but he came over 
as dead as a stone, and left quite a cloud of feathers in 
the air. 
“Who shot that pheasant?” cried a voice just under 
the feathers. It was my host on whose head I had 
dropped the bird. 
“I did,” I called out. 
“Deuce of a long shot, wasn’t it?” 
“Rather. Is he dead?” I asked. 
“Dead as a stone. That gun of yours must be a 
tearer. Hare to the right!” Bang! bang! and over 
went a brace of somethings, for my friend is a tearer, 
too, and when he pitches lead does it to some purpose 
usually. 
Cover shooting under any circumstancess, is more 
or less dangerous, and no matter how careful your 
shots may be, shots will glance; and you never know 
exactly where everybody is, and when it comes to 
ground game — unless it is going back — it is always 
more or less dangerous shooting, more particularly if 
you happen in your company to have a careless or over- 
eager shot. Some men are simply frightful in this way, 
and will be cutting the twigs about your ears, and the 
sensation of hearing the “whish” of shot and the 
shower of twigs just over your head is anything but 
good for one’s nerves, and the wonder is that so few 
serious accidents yearly happen. 
There is an old story — of how a shot of this sort 
was served out. He had very nearly peppered his next 
neighbor several times, and had been warned_ pretty 
forcibly. Indeed, on the last occasion, the victim had 
used strong language, and avowed that if his friend did 
it again he would “warm him” in return. Once again 
the shot came hurtling around his head. 
“Who shot then?” he called out. 
“I did,” said his friend. 
“Where are you?” 
“Here!” 
“Where? I canT see you. Hold up your hand.” 
Up went the hand. “Bang!” 
“Oh! you’ve shot me in the hand.” 
“Told you I would,” growled the injured man. “D’ye 
think I’m going to let you shoot at me all day without 
having a turn at you? Not exactly.’’ 
I don’t know whether the story is true, but it is 
ben trovato, if it isn’t, and I always tell_ it when I find 
a fellow shooting all over the shop, as if there was no 
one else within a mile or two. Unless I know that the 
way is quite clear I never shoot at ground game. I 
don’t like shaves, and I don’t like standing back a yard 
or two in the bushes for a man to pot a rabbit in the 
ride in my direction. It may be clever, but it is 
deuced unsatisfactory. Let the beast go; you’ll 
have him another day. 
I never shot but one man in my life, and he was a 
bricklayer, and earned it. We had some pigeons in a 
private field out at Clapham when I was a youngster. 
There was a high wall around a good part of it. There 
happened to be some houses building in the neighbor- 
hood, and two bricklayers climbed up and looked over 
our wall, leaning on it to see the sport. They were 
warned again and again that they were in a very 
dangerous place, and informed, that they were trespas- 
sing; but they chose to stop. A bird got up and skewed 
round to the left. My friend missed it, and I wiped 
his eye and the bricklayer’s arm at the same time. I 
did not see him at the moment, and thought they had 
gone. It happened that there was a road some distance 
off on the other side of the wall, and it was just with- 
the hundred yards, The result was a .summons to 
Union street, and old Hall, the magistrate, adjudicated. 
He heard the case. 
“Let me see the bullet,” he said, and three No. 6 
shots, which had been picked out of the man’s arm, 
were handed in. 
“Well! well! well!” he said, “that wouldn’t hurt 
much.” 
I thought to myself, “Old gentleman, if you’d give 
me a running shot at fifty yards I think I could con- 
vince you to the contrary!” 
We had to arrange with that son of labor at the rate 
of half a sovereign per shot, and then his mate, who 
hadn’; v'cei: shot, wa.nted compensation too — which, of 
course, we declined; and accordingly he went back to 
the worthy magistrate and asked for a summons. 
“But,” said the magistrate, “you weren’t shot !” 
“No; but I might have been! Sure, didn’t I run the 
same risk, and haven’t I lost the day’s work coming 
here?” 
“Go away, man, and don’t waste my time talking!” 
and the irate Hibernian was handed down, to his in- 
tense disgust. He couldn’t understand it at all; and 
then that miserable old Morning Herald, I remember — 
which very properly died for its sins years agone — had 
a wretched quasi-funny article about three Cockney 
sportsmen who, etc., etc. The Cockney sportsmen was 
a great and all-pervading institution in those days. 
Thanks be, he’s quite dead — and very much buried, too. 
I don’t care much about a regular slaughtering day 
with a spare gun and a loader. If I can shoot fifty or 
sixty cartridges it is good enough for me, and if I can 
account for two-thirds of them I am satisfied that I 
have done better than usual; and if a cock or two in- 
tervenes it spices the day. But an incessant fusillade 
with lots of hot corners, and a pile of dead to collect 
every now and then is rather too much of it. Enough 
is as good as a feast; and one gets stagnated with a 
surfeit. I am afraid in this respect, however, that I 
shall find few persons to be of my opinion. The mania 
for killing, when once it is set a going, grows by what 
it feeds on; and though there is a line beyond which 
sport declines into mere butchery, where that line pre- 
cisely is to be drawn depends upon a great variety of 
views; indeed, as regards pheasant shooters, I fear it 
would be “As many men as many minds.” 
“Telegram, sir,” said my servant, as I stood rod in 
hand on the bank of the Thames, trying, for lack of 
better amusement, to beguile the wily dace in the latter 
end of cheery October. Summer had been late, and 
though a few frosts early in October had gilded the 
leaves, and scattered some, a week or two’s fine weather 
had made things pleasant and brisk again. 
“Now,” said Raymond, as we drove up to a very 
snug cottage, with every convenience adjacent, “if that 
blackguard Fipps is only out of the way — and he ought 
to be, as it’s Snigswig market day — we shall have a 
perfect day.” 
“Who’s Fipps?” I asked. 
“The poachingest cuss in this country; he’s a farmer 
who rents about three hundred acres, that run in and 
out with our coverts in a way that is simply infernal. 
He won’t let us the shooting, having a sort of spite 
against my landlord, and I do believe he shoots nearly 
as much in his three hundred as we do in our three 
thousand. There’s no having him anyhow. He won’t 
be friendly; he won’t do anything but shoot — and, 
d n him! he can shoot some — and he has a familiar 
demon in the shape of a rat-tailed, mute-hunting, 
ragged-haired spaniel, half Clumber, half Norfolk, 
with a touch of Sctoch terrier and a wipe of retriever 
in him, that’s a worse poacher than himself. That dog 
sir, that dog is a sort of Snarley-yow or dog-fiend, he 
is diabolic; no game has a chance with him. The pair 
of ’em are enough to give a fellow the horrors. Why, 
I’m something’d but he made me pay him £10 com- 
pensation last year for damage to his buckwheat, be- 
cause I was weak enough to put a hatch of squeaker 
pheasants dowm in Chizzel Copse near his beastly ‘nine 
acres,’ every blessed head of which he shot in that 
very buckwheat, planted there for that purpose;” and 
Raymond looked at me with the air of a desperately 
injured individual, and I confess that he had reason. 
“But why did you pay?” I asked; “it was a gross 
swindle.” 
“Why? Because I didn’t want the expense and worry 
of a law-suit, with the certainty of having a jury of his 
friends at Snigswig against me as a consequence. In 
this free and enlightened country, sir, any blackguard 
may bring an action against you, with the certainty 
of finding thirteen other blackguards to back him, 
particularly in a game case. The man who breeds 
pheasants and spends no end of money in the country, 
which the country would very soon miss if he didn’t, 
deserves no mercy. He’s a bloated game preserver^ — 
sit on him, scrunch him, pickle him! However, let’s 
hope that Sunigswig market will be busy to-day, and 
the tobacco and gin-and-water extra attractive after- 
ward.” 
At this moment up came Johnson, the head keeper, 
with his terrier at his heels. “Well, Johnson, what are 
we to do to-day?” 
“Well, sir, there’s a decent sprinklin’ of burds, and 
the tame ones is werry fine and forrard. Hares there’s 
a goodish few, and rabbits midlin’. The leaf’s ’ardly 
enough off for Chickweed Oaks and the thick part o’ 
Timwillows; but I dessay we shan’t do that bad on the 
whole; and if that ’ere Fipps don’t turn up, why ” 
“Oh, he won’t turn up to-day. It’s Snigswig market, 
and he don’t know we’re goin’ to shoot, for I only 
made up my own mind yesterday afternoon.” 
But Johnson shook his head doubtfully. “He be at 
market I knows, ’cos I seed ’un goo, and he dwoan’t 
knaw as yet that you be goin’ to shoot.” 
“As yet ! What do you mean?” 
“Well, that ’ere little imp o’ Rackstraw’s sec you drive 
up, and I see him a-talkin’ to Joe the higgler just 
arter, and he’ll be sure to be for Snigswig; and it’s 
much to me if Fipps don’t get the office afore noon.” 
Raymond’s countenance perceptibly darkened. 
“Imp of Rackstraw’s! ah!” and he pondered. “By the 
way, I think a little schooling would improve that 
young gentleman. My friend Clippings is on your 
school t)oard; Di him a hint to look up Rack- 
straw’s imp, and we’ll see if we can’t get him some 
other occupation;” and he performed a graceful wink 
to Johnson, who beamed all over, and grinned huge ap- 
proval of the suggestion. 
“However, let’s be off; Captain Charles and Mr. 
Mouser are waiting for us at the cross-road; so we’ll 
start.” 
Ten or twelve minutes brought us to the cross-road, 
where two gunners were idling against a gate,- smoking 
the matutinal weed. Captain Charles was a very good 
fellow home from Indian on sick leave, who could do 
many things better than most — thrash a cad, turn over 
a rocketer, nurse a break well on the green cloth, go 
across country like an angel with wings (as little 
Mouser, his admirer, said), speak three languages, give 
most amateurs a bisque at tennis, and could sing a good 
song — and write one, too, for that matter. Mouser 
was a good little chap; everybody said so; and for 
once, what everybody said was true, though it isn’t 
always by any means. He stuttered slightly, and wore 
an eyeglass. 
“We’ll take this ’ere spinney and hedgerow first. 
Mr. F. and Cap’n Charles, take each corner of the 
spinney there; Muster Raymond and Muster Frederick, 
take that ’edgerow down; Muster Mouser, take the 
middle of the spinney, please. One o’ you beaters” — 
to ten or a dozen stick men of the usual stamp — “goo 
either side of Muster Mouser; the rest on ye glang on 
to tha’ ’ood an’ wait there.” 
All this was duly arranged without fuss, noise, or 
confusion, and this argued well for sport, as nothing is 
so provoking and so likely to spoil sport as bad gen- 
eralship and inefficient drilling in this respect. I walked 
to my corner, slipping in a brace of gastight greens as 
I went; Captain Charles walked to his corner; little 
Mouser to the further end with his beaters; while the 
Bushes went down the hedgerow with Johnson and his 
terrier Rat. This hedgerow, like all the hedgerows in 
these parts, was a good thick one, some thirty or 
forty feet deep, and pretty close at bottom, with trees 
at intervals. There was always a stray pheasant or 
two in these rows, with now and then a brace or two 
of partridges, an odd hare or two, and a few rabbits. 
It was pretty work; indeed, good hedgerow shooting 
is as pretty as any I know- — real jam. Now a rabbit 
pops out and in again, as the terrier or spaniel threads 
the runs and bustles them up; then a hare makes a dash 
for the open, only to be rolled over and over with a 
charge of No. 6 in her poll; anon a cock preasant, 
glittering in the sunshine, rises with prodigious em- 
phasis for the last time in his mundane career; or a 
brace of cunning old birds, whose brood has gone astray 
somehow by reason of cats or other vermin, skim out 
toward the distant mangold they are never destined to 
reach. 
Meantime I have ensconced myself behind an Irish 
yew bush, on either side of which I can command the 
spinney. Now I hear Mouser coming down from the 
far end, and the “tap, tap” of the beaters. A pigeon 
comes whistling through the treetops. They always come 
first — wary dogs; and, as he can’t see me, I double him 
up neatly. Then Mouser speaks. “Bang!” A bunny 
come to grief, I take it. “Mark!”^ — bang! — “mark 
forward!” I hear the flutter of wings, and the next 
minute Captain Charles is heard from. There is a 
crash in the bushes, and no more flutter of wings. 
“First longtaill” “mark!” bang! and Mous.er evidently 
scores one. “Mark forrard to the right!” and a pheas- 
ant comes rocketing over the larches. I am not quite 
as good at a rocketer as at some other things, and don’t 
pitch quite far enough forward with the first; but the 
second fetches him, and down he comes like a bean 
bag. “Hare forrard to the right !” Bang ! bang ! Jee- 
rusalem! Mouser missed him. “Flare forrard!” I peep 
round the corner and see puss coming down the hedge 
like an express train with a kick in it. I wait quietly until 
she is within thirty yards, when just as I finger the 
trigger she pops short into the plantation again, “Hare 
to the left!” I shout, and the next moment Captain 
Charles speaks again. .\nd so the fun goes on for a 
few minutes longer, the tapping and rustling coming 
closer, till I see little Mouser pushing aside the bushes 
in a bit of thick close at hand. A rabbit or two have 
been added to the score, and the spinney had produced 
three pheasants, a hare and four rabbits, and the pigeon. 
Meantime our friends at the hedgerow have not been 
idle, and, with the assistance of Johnson and Rat, the 
dog, have bagged a brace of pheasants, an old cock 
partridge, three rabbits, and a hare. Not so bad for 
a beginning, especially as nothing to speak of has got 
away. Then we go on to Timwillows, a low scrubby 
cover, with a withy bed adjoining, and standing round 
the withy bed at judicious intervals (for it is too thick 
tc shoot in), we wait the beaters. 
“Please shoot all the rabbits you can, gents, as the 
tenant complains o’ their barkin’ the sets. I says as 
it’s rats; he says ’taint.” And here with the assistance 
of Rat, the dog, a goodish many rabbits are bustled 
about, and seven or eight come to grief; and another 
brace of pheasants fall a neat right and left to Ray- 
mond, who shoots very prettily. 
Muster F.,” whispers Johnson, “I see a dom’d old 
brindled cat a bit back; ef you sees’ri, sir, give him a 
dose, please, and say nothing to no one.” Five minutes 
afterward I did sight that cat, and she saw me, but 
just a shade too late, for the No. 6 had chawed her up 
righteously. I pointed over my shoulder pussywards 
to Johnson, who bored in under the wands, shoved 
grimalkin into a convenient hole, covered her with sods, 
and battened her down. “Many a young pheasant and 
patridge he’ve had. a old divel; and hadn’t he some 
teeth and claws! I’ll gie ye a tip for that, Muster F. 
Look ’ere, sir,” drawing me close and whispering a 
great secret, “I see a cock yes-rday up in the no’th 
end o’ Baskerville Copse. Only you an’ Muster Ray- 
mond knows on’t. It’ll want two guns to sarcumwent 
him, if he’s there; so do you look out, and he’ll do the 
same.” 
“A cock, Johnson! What, so early as this! Never; 
you must have been mistaken.” 
“Not me!” said Johnson; “he were bred here. There 
were two on ’em; but I ’specs that ’ere blamed Fipps 
’a got one on ’em.” 
Then we shot another little ^yood, and scored a few 
