The first covert shoot has a peculiar charm for the
sportsman--especially when the shoot is in familiar woods. There has
grown a feeling of friendship for the old rides and trees, and they
seem to offer a warmer welcome every year. He comes to the historic
corner where he failed miserably to do justice to a rush of pheasants.
Here is the opening through which his first woodcock tried to glide--in
vain. He remembers, perhaps, that even now he has that woodcock's two
pen-feathers in the depths of some ancient purse. Here was where he
scored a double at partridges hurtling through the tree-tops--only
to be beaten a moment later by a hare, slowly cantering. Nothing has
changed in the woods. They wear the same old look of nakedness; save
for a hurrying pigeon, there is the same desolate lifelessness. Nothing
stirs, but the leaf fluttering to earth; all is dead quiet. Then in
the distance is heard the prelude of the beaters' sticks--tap, tap,
tapping. The sportsman dreams, musing of past days and their great
deeds. Then a lithe moving form catches his eye--a hare has slipped
out of sight. A shot rings out, echoes and re-echoes; another, and
doubles, and clusters of shots. The old wood is the old wood still.
* * * * *