‘What a ripping day for shooting!’

The Squire, wearing a suit carefully coloured so that no bird should see him, leather leggings, and a cloth helmet of his own devising, ventilated by many little holes, came up to his son; and the spaniel John, who had a passion for the collection of birds almost equal to his master’s, came up too.

“You’re end gun, George,” he said; “you’ll get a nice high bird!”

George felt the ground with his feet, and blew a speck of dust off his barrels, and the smell of the oil sent a delicious tremor darting through him.  Everything, even Helen Bellew, was forgotten.  Then in the silence rose a far-off clamour; a cock pheasant, skimming low, his plumage silken in the sun, dived out of the green and golden spinney, curled to the right, and was lost in undergrowth.  Some pigeons passed over at a great height.  The tap-tap of sticks beating against trees began; then with a fitful rushing noise a pheasant came straight out.  George threw up his gun and pulled.  The bird stopped in mid-air, jerked forward, and fell headlong into the grass sods with a thud.  In the sunlight the dead bird lay, and a smirk of triumph played on George’s lips.  He was feeling the joy of life.

During his covert shoots the Squire had the habit of recording his impressions in a mental note-book.  He put special marks against such as missed, or shot birds behind the waist, or placed lead in them to the detriment of their market value, or broke only one leg of a hare at a time, causing the animal to cry like a tortured child, which some men do not like; or such as, anxious for fame, claimed dead creatures that they had not shot, or peopled the next beat with imaginary slain, or too frequently “wiped an important neighbour’s eye,” or shot too many beaters in the legs.  Against this evidence, however, he unconsciously weighed the more undeniable social facts, such as the title of Winlow’s father; Sir James Malden’s coverts, which must also presently be shot; Thomas Brandwhite’s position in the financial world; General Pendyce’s relationship to himself; and the importance of the English Church.  Against Foxleigh alone he could put no marks.  The fellow destroyed everything that came within reach with utter precision, and this was perhaps fortunate, for Foxleigh had neither title, coverts, position, nor cloth!  And the Squire weighed one thing else besides—­the pleasure of giving them all a good day’s sport, for his heart was kind.

The sun had fallen well behind the home wood when the guns stood waiting for the last drive of the day.  From the keeper’s cottage in the hollow, where late threads of crimson clung in the brown network of Virginia creeper, rose a mist of wood smoke, dispersed upon the breeze.  Sound there was none, only that faint stir—­the far, far callings of men and beasts and birds—­that never quite dies of a country evening.  High above the wood some startled pigeons were still wheeling, no other