The wet day brings the chance for doing various little carpentering
jobs, long neglected. The keeper may have set himself the task of
making a new hand-barrow before the coming of another pheasant-rearing
time--a barrow for carrying the coops, two at a time, with the hen and
precious chicks within, where a horse and cart cannot pass through
the coverts. Perhaps he remembers a day when the crazy handle of the
old barrow snapped off and upset two coops of his best birds. Then
a wet day is a good day for sorting coops, and putting apart for
professional treatment those beyond the keeper's makeshift craft. He
can set about painting the whole ones. Now and again he must look to
his ferret-hutches, and fit new wire-netting to the fronts if any
meshes are rotten with rust--should the ferrets escape there is no
telling what may happen. And guns are never the worse for an extra
special examination, and a thorough cleaning and oiling. An all-round
tidying-up of his varied assortment of tackle certainly makes for a
temporary improvement in the look of his work-places--but, as it has
been with every clearance, the same old lumber is once more reprieved.
"You see," says the keeper, "it might come in useful some time."
* * * * *