Punch (73.1877)

September 1, 1877.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 89

TAKING HIM AT HIS WORD.

Cabby (indignantly holding out Shilling), " Come, I say, what d'ye Call

THIS 'eke ! ? "

Facetious Fare. " ' Heads ' !—So it is ! Handover!" [Objurgations I

inquire whether my Cousin is really lord, in fee, of a Moor well stocked with
Grouse, or only rents some acres of wild common, still clothed in its primeval
heather.

I am started off on my beat at ten—alone—with Dog, Keeper, and Bag-
carrier. I wish they had sent me with a party, so I might have escaped notice.
Now I feel three pair of eyes, Dog's, Keeper's, and Bag-carrier's, are looking
down upon me!

This is the beat where, Keeper tells me, " Loed Rocket once got thirty brace
on the twelfth."

The sight of my beat somewhat startles me,—my conception of a Moor being
derived from Addington, near Croydon, where the hills are small, and not high,
and the heather is purple, and not deep. Here I am shown miles of quite
brown ling, very deep indeed, and hills like good-sized mountains.

" Capital cover," says Keeper, as we enter it. I should think so. I would
undertake to hide a flock of sheep in it.

I tramp the heather gallantly for an hour or two, getting cramps in my legs,
but no grouse. Keeper declares the birds are as wild as hawks. It was very
different in Loed Rocket's time, he says: his Lordship got six brace off the hill
I'm now on. " He was qualified to hit them, he was." I take the backhander
becomingly, but it's my firm belief that Loed Rocket is a mere myth brought
out by the Keeper to impress strangers with proper respect for the Moor.

I soon learn one thing, that long habit has developed in pointers a manner of
talking with their tails. When my dog stands still and wags his tail, he means
to say : " A bird is, or has been here. On the whole I think it's gone ; but
look out." _ When he stiffens his tail to a point (that, I'm told, is why he's
called a pointer), he means to say : "A bird is here, but its specific nature I'm
not sure of." Nine times out of twelve it's a lark.

It is, indeed, remarkable that moor-larks do not soar and carol like ordinary
larks, but sit skulking in the heather, simply, I believe, for the fun of making
the dogs mistake them for grouse. Keeper espies pointer a long way off,
generally on a higher level than I am. " Have a care!" he says to me, which
means that I am to rush off to where the dog stands. Dog's tail is pointed, so I
fairly expect a grouse. Two flutterings occur simultaneously, one in my heart,
the other in the heather—the latter from a lark who chirps off merrily. The
first time this happened, my gun went off from mere excitement. So did the
lark, I suppose from the same feeling. It's a nasty trick they have. Unconstitutional.—Counts in the House of Commons.

It is now one o'clock, and I feel nearly dead with
fatigue. I feel it was cruel to send me on a beat by
myself, like a policeman. 1 sit down to eat my lonely
lunch. I am told that this is not in accordance with the
precedent set by Loed Rocket. "His Lordship never
sat down once ; nobbut ate a bun as he walked along."
Hang Loed Rocket ! I hate him !

After luncheon—which I haven't in the least enjoyed,
thanks to Loed Bucket—Keeper says, "We should by
rights take that little strip back."

"By all means," I reply; but that little strip back
means a belt of enormously rough heather, right over
the top of the hill we have just descended. I toil back
up the steep slope and stumble through the cruel bushes
mechanically, hopelessly. Keeper says, " There should
be some birds on the top, but there's no telling." Of
course there's no telling; and of course there are no
birds—not for me.

All this time I have been nearly roasted by the sun,
when suddenly it sets in to rain. It's a cold, drizzling,
wetting rain. I ask Keeper whether he thinks it will
be a wet afternoon. He replies, that it's " only heat."
On the contrary, I find it decidedly cold.

The ling soon gets as slippery as sea-weed, but Keeper
doesn't suggest returning home ; and as I know dinner
was ordered at eight, I shouldn't like to sneak home, in
an unsportsmanlike style, at five. So I plod on.

The rain (or heat) quite benumbs my hands. I sup-
pose I enjoy this very much; for, after all, it is sport.
I wonder what bags the rest of the party are making ? I
have only got two brace, though it's wonderful how
many birds Keeper declares I've killed, which fiy away
notwithstanding. I must have killed quite ten brace ;
and I shall count them, if any one asks what I've killed.

All of a sudden Dog, in ranging, frightens a bird
away without pointing it. Keeper's wrath is extreme.
He belabours wretched Dog with his ramrod, which is
also his walking-stick. He calls him a monkey-faced
brat, and the poor animal's whines might be heard all
the country round. I wonder he doesn't bite. I should
think he would bite me if I beat him like that. The
Bag-carrier watches the castigation soberly and silently.
I haven't the moral courage to say a word. When it's
over, the poor brute positively fawns on Keeper, as if he
considered him the best friend he had in the world.
Such meanness is disgusting! One would think he
thought the beating came from me. After all, dogs
must be very like men, and love best those who lick
them most. Thttcydides, I believe, has some such re-
mark—of men, not of dogs. He knew nothing about
pointers.

We have now come to a large peat bog, studded with
little islets of heather. It's no longer walking, but
jumping, with the danger of a peat-bath, and possibly
a peat-grave.

I no longer feel cold, but hot, both in mind and body.
All of a sudden Keeper cries, " Mark! " as an old cock
grouse emerges from his hiding-place, and crows defiance
at me. In taking aim, I lose my footing. I believe I he ar
Bag-carrier laugh as I fall into what I have no doubt will
prove a bottomless bog. Thank goodness, I go no further
than my knees; but my nerves are shaken : and I boldly
tell Keeper I'm going home. He accedes, scornfully,
and looks as though he thought the ghost of Lord
Rocket would haunt both of us for ever.

On the way home Dog suddenly makes a dead point,
and I stand expectant once more. This time it isn't
even a lark, but only a Daddy Long-legs. Yet I had
to go up a considerable hill after that Daddy Long-legs.
I deserve some champagne. I hope I shall get it.

As I trudge home dead-beat I can't help thinking that
if, as Me. Rtjskin says, it is a nobler occupation to try to
make wild, birds tame than tame birds wild, I at least have
done my little to encourage wild grouse to lay aside
their timidity of man. However, I forget my fatigue in
the delightful anticipation of talking over my prowess to
Mes. and Miss Peettyiian. They know nothing about
grouse-shooting, except that it's a very fine thing, and
that all who take part in it are very fine fellows.

I deserve some compensation for all I have suffered ;
to say nothing of the sovereign I shall have to give
Keeper, and the half-crown to the boy who has earned
the bag. I don'tfeel eitherof them has earned his money.