CHAPTER XII

THE SQUIRE’S ’ROUND ROBIN

A cock pheasant flies in frantic haste across the road, beating the air with wide-stretched wings, and fast as he goes, puts on yet a faster spurt as the shot comes rattling up through the boughs of the oak beneath him.  The ground is, however, unfavourable to the sportsman, and the bird escapes.  The fir copse from which the pheasant rose covers a rather sharp descent on one side of the highway.  On the level above are the ploughed fields, but the slope itself is too abrupt for agricultural operations, and the soil perhaps thin and worthless.  It is therefore occupied by a small plantation.  On the opposite side of the road there grows a fine row of oaks in a hedge, under whose shade the dust takes long to dry when once damped by a shower.  The sportsman who fired stands in the road; the beaters are above, for they desire the game to fly in a certain direction; and what with the narrow space between the firs and the oaks, the spreading boughs, and the uncertainty of the spot where the pheasant would break cover, it is not surprising that he missed.

The shot, after tearing through the boughs, rises to some height in the air, and, making a curve, falls of its own weight only, like pattering hail—­and as harmless—­upon an aged woman, just then trudging slowly round the corner.  She is a cottager, and has been to fetch the weekly dole of parish bread that helps to support herself and infirm husband.  She wears a long cloak that nearly sweeps the ground on account of her much-bowed back, and carries a flag basket full of bread in one hand, and a bulging umbrella, which answers as a walking stick, in the other.  The poor old body, much startled, but not in the least injured, scuttles back round the corner, exclaiming, ’Lor! it be Filbard a-shooting:  spose a’had better bide a bit till he ha’ done.’  She has not long to wait.  The young gentleman standing in the road gets a shot at another cock; this time the bird flies askew, instead of straight across, and so gives him a better opportunity.  The pheasant falls crash among the nettles and brambles beside the road.  Then a second and older gentleman emerges from the plantation, and after a time a keeper, who picks up the game.

The party then proceed along the road, and coming round the corner the great black retriever runs up to the old woman with the most friendly intentions, but to her intense confusion, for she is just in the act of dropping a lowly curtsey when the dog rubs against her.  The young gentleman smiles at her alarm and calls the dog; the elder walks on utterly indifferent.  A little way up the road the party get over the gate into the meadows on that side, and make for another outlying plantation.  Then, and not till then, does the old woman set out again, upon her slow and laborious journey.  ‘Filbard be just like a gatepost,’ she mutters; ‘a’ don’t take no notice of anybody.’