In early November many keepers are putting the perfecting-touches to
plans that have been maturing all through the year. From the second
day of February the keeper whose work is not merely work, but the
most absorbing interest the world has to offer, has been weighing
continuously a thousand details--studying each in its relation to
others--scheming to arrange all so that in combination they shall bring
the best possible results when the big days of the shooting season come
to pass. Few shooting men realise the immense importance of apparently
trivial details. Let a single one--such as the exact placing of a
"stop"--be forgotten or disregarded, and the whole of a day's sport by
modern methods may be ruined. Many good beats, many good days, have
been brought to naught by a sportsman coolly and without permission
despatching an important "stop" on an errand. And afterwards he will
protest in all good faith that he commandeered the "stop" only because
he seemed to be standing idly at a corner, as if waiting for something
to do.
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