At ten o'clock next morning we met the keepers, dogs, and beaters not
far from the first line of butts on the moor. There was a hot sun, and
the bees were bumbling in the heather. Somehow Whitehall seemed a long
way off.
The number of guns had been brought up to seven by the inclusion of a
neighbouring laird--one Gilmerton of Nethercraigs--and his son.
"All the same, we are still a man short," complained the Admiral, to
whom a house-party was a ship's company, and a day's shooting a sort of
terrestrial naval manoeuvre. "However, we will cut out the end butt in
each drive and put a stop there to turn the birds farther in. Now we'll
draw for places. Each man to take the butt whose number he draws,
counting from the right and moving up one place after each drive. And
Heaven help the man who draws number four now, for it means number seven
and a climb up The Pimple for him directly after lunch!"
There was a general laugh at this, which swelled to an unseemly roar
when I drew the fatal number.
However, after lunch was a long way off, and I trotted contentedly to
number four and settled down to a pipe, while the head-keeper led off
his mixed multitude of assistants, dogs, boys, and red flags to make a
_détour_ and work the game up towards us.
The first drive was simple. We were in a long and rather shallow glen,
across which ran a low ridge, dividing it into two almost equal
sections. The butts were placed along this ridge; and after the birds
had been sent over us the beaters would work round to the other end of
the glen and drive them back again. The shooting would be easy, for the
ground lay flat and open in either direction.
I found myself between Standish and Gerald; the former on my right, and
the latter, together with the young keeper to whom his shooting
education had been entrusted, in the butt on my left. Beyond Standish
was Dermott, the crack shot of the party, and beyond Dermott, in number
one butt, was the Admiral. The Gilmertons, _père et fils_, occupied the
butts on the extreme left.
The drive was moderately successful. At first the birds came along
singly, mostly on the right, and fell an easy prey to Dermott and the
Admiral. But presently a great pack got up comparatively near the butts,
and fairly "rushed" us. I brought off an easy right and left straight in
front of me, and then, snapping out my cartridges and slipping another
in, I swung round and just managed to bring down a third bird with a
"stern chaser"--a feat which I regretted to observe no one else noticed,
for there was a perfect fusilade all along the line at the moment.
Master Gerald, who had discharged his first barrel straight into the
"brown," succeeded, in obedience to his mentor's admonitions, in
covering an old cock-grouse with his second, and carefully following
that flustered fowl's course with the point of his gun, pulled the
trigger just as it skimmed, low down, with an agitated squawk, between
his butt and mine. I heard the shot rattle through the heather, and two
pellets hit on my left boot.
The congenial task of telling Gerald, in a low but penetrating voice,
exactly what I thought of him, occupied my attention so fully for the
next minute that I failed to observe a blackcock which suddenly swung up
into view and whizzed straight past my head, to the audible annoyance of
the distant Admiral and the undisguised joy of my unrepentant relative.
No more birds came after that, and presently, the line of beaters having
advanced within range, we put down our guns and collected the slain. We
had not done badly, considering the fact that the main body of the birds
had swerved away to our left over the unoccupied butt, despite the
valiant efforts of an urchin with a red flag to turn them. Dermott
headed the list with four and a half brace, and Gerald brought up the
rear with a mangled corpse which had received the contents of his first
barrel point-blank at a distance of about six feet. The laird of
Nethercraigs (a cautious and economical sportsman, who was reputed never
to loose off his gun at anything which did not come and perch on his
butt) had fired just three cartridges and killed just three birds, but
his son had seven. The Admiral and Standish had also had average luck,
and altogether we had fourteen and a half brace to show for our
exertions.
Off went the beaters again, and we changed butts and waited. The second
drive gave us fewer birds but better sport. There were no great packs,
but we got plenty to do in the way of sharp-shooting, and Gerald's
keeper--a singularly ambiguous title in this case--succeeded by
increased vigilance in preserving me from being further sniped by my
enterprising brother-in-law.
We totalled up twelve brace this time, and then made ready for a tramp
to the next line of butts, away round the shoulder of a fairly distant
hill.
"We may as well spread out and walk 'em up this bit," said our host. "We
can't have the dogs, though, as the keepers and beaters are going a
different way; and each man will have to carry what he shoots. In that
case we'll leave rabbits alone. Gerald, you had better get to the
extreme left of the line. That will limit the risk to one man!"
"I'll carry home your bag if you'll carry mine, Gerald," cried Standish
facetiously, as my brother-in-law, a trifle offended at the Admiral's
last pleasantry, proceeded with much dignity to his allotted place.
Gerald was almost out of earshot, but he waved a defiant acquiescence.
We tramped round the shoulder of the hill, keeping our distance as well
as we could on the steep slope, and occasionally putting up something to
shoot at. My bag this time made no great demands on my powers of
porterage, consisting as it did of a solitary snipe. However, when
nearly an hour later we gathered at the foot of the next line of
butts--the last before lunch--most of us were carrying something.
Standish gleefully displayed two hares and a brace of grouse.
"There is something for Master Gerald to carry back to the
luncheon-cart," he said. "I wonder what he has got for me. Where is he?"
"I don't quite know," said Dermott, who had been Gerald's nearest
neighbour. "He was so offended by our gibes about the danger of his
society that he walked rather wide of me. He kept down at the very foot
of the hill most of the time, almost out of sight."
"I hope he hasn't shot himself," said the Admiral rather anxiously.
"Never fear!" said I. "That will not be his end. Here he is."
Sure enough, Gerald appeared at this moment. He was empty-handed.
Simple and primitive jests greeted him.
"Hallo, old man, what have you shot--eh? Where is your little lot?"
Gerald smiled seraphically.
"You'll find it down there," he said--"in that patch of bracken,
Standish. I left it for you to bring up. Rather heavy for me."
"What on earth have you shot?" we cried involuntarily.
"A sheep," said Gerald calmly.
Great heavens!
We rushed down the hill as one man--and came up again looking not a
little hot and uncommonly foolish. The sheep was there, it is true,
stiff and stark in the bracken; but more senses than one apprised us of
the fact that it had been dead for considerably more than five minutes.
Gerald had stumbled on to the corpse, and had turned his discovery, we
afterwards admitted, to remarkably good advantage. It was "Mr Standish's
turn," as Miss Buncle, in the picturesque but mysterious vernacular of
her race, remarked at luncheon, "to hold the baby this time."
After the third drive we gladly put up our guns and tramped down the
hillside to the road below, where the ladies were waiting and the feast
was spread. After we had disposed of grouse sandwiches,
whisky-and-water, and jammy scones, and were devoting our post-prandial
leisure to repose or dalliance with the fair--according as we were
married or single--Lady Rubislaw inquired--
"Where are you shooting this afternoon, John?"
"The Neb, first," replied the Admiral. "And that reminds me, the man who
drew the top butt had better start now, or he'll be late."
With many groans, and followed by the mingled derision and sympathy of
the company, I picked up my _impedimenta_ and started, leaving the
others to decide who, if any, of the shooters was to have the honour of
entertaining a lady in his butt.
The Neb was a great mountain spur, whose base ran to within two or three
hundred yards of our resting-place. In appearance it roughly resembled a
mighty Napoleonic nose. The butts ran right up the ridge of that organ;
and nine hundred feet above where we sat, just below an excrescence
locally known as "The Pimple," lay mine.
I reached my eyrie at last, and having laid my flask, tobacco-pouch, and
twelve loose cartridges where I could reach them most handily on
projecting shelves of peat inside the butt--I love neatness and method:
Kitty says that when (if ever) I get to heaven I will decline to enter
until I have wiped my boots,--settled down to enjoy a superb view and
take note of the not altogether uninteresting manner in which the other
members of the party were disposing themselves for the drive.
Just below me were Standish and Miss Buncle, the lady a conspicuous mark
for all men (and grouse) to behold by reason of a red tam o'shanter, the
sight of which made me regret that its wearer was not employed as a
beater. In the butt below were Dermott and Dolly--both very workmanlike
and inconspicuous. Below them came the Admiral, with his wife (she
always came and sat behind him, like a remarkably smart little
powder-monkey, during the afternoon drive): below them, the Gilmertons;
and last of all, thank Heaven! Gerald.
The shooting on this beat would not be easy, though birds were always
plentiful. They came round the face of the hill at very short range and
express speed. My particular butt was notoriously difficult to score
from. There was an awkward hummock in front of it, and driven birds
swinging into view round this were practically right over the butt
before its occupant could get his gun up.
It was a rather sleepy afternoon. Far away I could hear the sound of the
advancing beaters--the cries of the boys, the occasional barking of a
dog, and the shrill piping of the headkeeper's whistle. Suddenly three
birds swung into view round the face of the hill, and made straight for
the line of butts. They were just below me, nearer to Standish's butt
than mine, but I put up my gun and picked off the nearest. The other
two, instead of keeping on their course over Standish's head, suddenly
swerved round to the left, almost at right angles--I think they had seen
Miss Buncle's tam o' shanter and simultaneously decided that there are
worse things than death--and flew straight down the line, followed by an
ineffectual volley from the twelve and twenty-eight bores respectively.
"Now, Dermott, my boy!" I ejaculated, as the birds skimmed past the
third butt. "There's a chance for a really pretty right and left."
But no sound--no movement even--came from our crack's lair. The birds
flew by unharmed, only to fall later on, one to the Admiral, and one to
young Gilmerton.
"_Dormitat Homerus_," I murmured, gazing curiously towards Dermott's
butt. "I wonder if--Jove, there they go! What a pack! Well done, Gerald!
Oh, Gilmerton, you old _sweep_! Fire, man, _fire_! Good old Admiral!
Dermott, man, what the devil---- Have _at_ them!"
I fairly danced in the heather. A perfect cloud of birds was pouring
over the lower part of the line. The Admiral, the Gilmertons, and Gerald
were firing fast and furiously,--even the laird of Nethercraigs loosed
off at birds that were neither running nor sitting,--and when the
beaters appeared in sight five minutes later, and the drive came to an
end, the four lower butts totalled twelve brace among them.