THE days between Goodwood and the Twelfth are agreeably busy.
Soon the air will smell of frost, of oak leaves, of wet soil under a southern wall. The nights are drawing in. Great splashes of yellow will appear in the crowns of the elms. We get the scent of crushed crab-apples from the path trodden under the fence. The last few birds will be left behind in the glen that rests for another season.
THE GLORIOUS TWELFTH
We move in an atmosphere of fishing-rods and guns,
shooting-sticks and golf clubs. Rumours about the grouse
prospects are mixed. In the gunmaker's we hear whispers of
heather-beetle, reductions of staff, shortage of keepers, increase
of vermin, snowstorms in the spring, and so on. Certain areas
are pin-pointed as patchy, others as fair to middHn*. The only
consolation is that the game-book entry is not everything. The
most important things in the bag are often incidental memories.
The very act of handling our guns recalls the silence of the moors,
a silence broken by the unceasing trill of trickling water, the hum
of insects, the scent of heather honey on a Highland night, the
mew of a buzzard, the challenge of an old cock grouse. The most
graphic perhaps is the memory of the hush before a thunderstorm.
The dead stillness in the air that perceptibly affects wild life. An
arch of black mist, with ragged fringes trailing the moor, dragging
onward with gathering speed, and beneath it a blank wall of
coming rain. As the first big drops begin to spatter, a sudden
gust of wind blows fiercely, a flash, a stunning detonation, a
rumble as of mountains moving, a rending crash echoing from
cloud to cloud with majestic rolls. Then, like a benediction, it
departs. There are longer intervals between the lightning pulses.
A rainbow crosses the trailing fringes of the storm. The glens
send up a delightful reek of timely rain. A faint low peal murmurs
in the distance. Wild life returns.
Such thoughts are inspired by our guns. The first drives of
the new season soon make them reality. The head-keeper shakes
hands with old friends. The gillie with the pony is there to take
charge of the cartridges. The party consists of eight guns. On the
skyline the beaters wait for the signal to march. Lots are drawn
for the butts. The centre ones are usually preferred to those on
the outside. A great deal depends upon whether the flight of the
birds has been studied. Grouse have a natural flight, and if there
is no wind they will invariably go the same way, and the butts
should be placed accordingly. Even if we are unlucky, it will
only be for one drive. We move up two places for the second
drive, and the same again for the third drive.
There is no talking and no excitement: all are veterans who
know exactly what is expected of them. We settle ourselves on a
shooting-seat with the barrels of the first gun resting on the edge
of the butt. The peat smells familiar. The other butts on either
side are about eighty yards apart on a straight line. We glance at
the loader behind with his open bag of cartridges. A preliminary
shuffle shows whether we can swing freely. Black specks can be
seen in the distance, rapidly approaching. We speculate whether
the birds will come to the right or the left of that rock. Plenty are
sweeping over. An old cock swerves and comes down the line,
so high that it is safe to fire at him. The man above us in the next
butt misses with both barrels. We follow suit, thinking that he
must be out of shot. But the man below us crumples him up,
taking him well in the beak. Another bird comes whirring
straight at our butt. It reaches the marking-stone, but still looks
out of range. We wait a second. The trigger is pulled. Missed.
The second barrel. The bird crumples up. Nothing can dim the
thrill of the first of the season. A shrill whistle warns that the
beaters are approaching. The drive is over. The pick-up begins.
We walk to the next line of butts, crossing a deep ravine, and
trudge up the steep slope beyond. The highest butts are over
1,500 feet above sea level. No shooting between drives. The view
is impressive, a vast expanse of undulating heather. It is hard to
realize that a few hours earlier we were part of the confusion of
Euston. We reach our butts and have a long wait, for this is
another feeding drive. The sun is strong now, and a faint steam
rises from the damp heather. Down the gully the view stretches
for miles taking in tumbling backs, pools, and patches of rock.
Warning whistles come from the butts on each side. The birds
are coming fast now. A short right and left then a miss then
one two miss four. High and fast down the line of guns.
When the drive ends, warm gun-barrels are rested on the butt-
edge. A glow of satisfaction anticipates with equanimity the
stolid question... "Anything to pick up, sir?"
Lunch by a peat-stained burn. Cold grouse eaten with our
fingers. Whisky and water out of horn cups. Coffee served with
a chasse of sloe gin. Food rarely tastes so delicious.
It is interesting to compare the pleasures of the moment with
those of the past. Sport with the gun has long been a favourite in
these islands, yet how many men who shoot have heard of Colonel
Peter Hawker. He is unread, but he was the first great writer and
practitioner of the sport as we know it today. His book 'Instructions
to Young Sportsmen' in all that relates to Guns and Shooting is described by Sir Ralph Payne GaUway as without an equal for terseness,
accuracy and original observation. It is an acknowledged classic,
but I find more entertaining the book by Colonel George Hanger,
published in the same year, 1814, and entitled 'To All Sportsmen'
particularly to farmers and Gamekeepers. His detailed advice has a
somewhat full military flavour; for instance he recommends that,
in order to be sure of keeping poachers out of your wood you
should mount a six-pounder cannon on top of your house, and
fire a few rounds of glass marbles and perforated clay balls into
the wood by night, two or three times a week. Somewhat old-
fashioned advice; even so we are in direct succession with such
figures, a claim equally applicable to Tom de Grey, the sixth
Lord Walsingham, who performed a feat on 30th August, 1888,
which will probably never be equalled. On his own 2,000-acre
moor at Blubberhouses in Yorkshire he fired 1,500 cartridges and
killed 1,070 grouse in fourteen hours eighteen minutes. There
were twenty drives and he used a pair of light Purdy hammer
guns, not ejectors, firing three and a quarter drams of black
powder. Once during the day, when there were only three birds
in sight, he killed all three with one shot. There are many other
exceptional examples; among them must be placed the feat of
Sir Everard Hambro, who, in Wigtownshire in the 'nineties,
killed eighteen blackgame with one barrel. Skill and age go
together in the case of Horatio Ross, who is alleged to have
killed eighty-two grouse with eighty-two shots on his eighty-
second birthday, and the late Lord Ripon who killed 420 grouse
in one day at the age of seventy. Most remarkable of all is probably
the bag of 2,929 grouse killed in one day on 12th August, 1915.
It happened on Lord Sefton's Abbeystead and Littledale Moors
in Lancashire. In three days, eight guns, joined by one more on
the last day, bagged 5,971 grouse. The season's total was 17,078
grouse all shot on roughly 17,000 acres. The eight guns consisted
of the Earl of Sefton, Major the Hon. J. Dawnay, the Hon. H.
Stonor, Captain the Hon. T. Fitzherbert, the Hon. J. Ward, Mr.
de Oakley, Major the Hon. E. Beaumont, and the Hon. H.
Bridgeman.
Yorkshire can claim to have introduced "grouse driving"
when, roughly 150 years ago, Squire Spencer Stanhope found it
was less tiring to sit in a sand-pit with a double-barrelled muzzle-
loading gun and wait for his sons to drive the grouse over him.
This driving principle was further developed by Squire Stanhope
and the Bishop of Durham on a more organized scale on Horsley
Moor, their lead being followed by Lord Savile, who erected some
butts at Rishworth Moor.
Our pleasures are identical. Soon the air will smell of frost, of
oak leaves, of wet soil under a southern wall. The nights are
drawing in. Great splashes of yellow will appear in the crowns of
the elms. We get the scent of crushed crab-apples from the path
trodden under the fence. The last few birds will be left behind in
the glen that rests for another season.
Website Designed for Internet Explorer ~ 1024x768 Screen Resolution
