down to lunch very much out of conceit with ourselves, our guns, our cartridges, the keepers, the dogs, and everything else.  The pleasant array of plates and glasses, and the savoury odours of the meats mitigated, but did not dispel the frowns.  Then suddenly there dropped down amongst us, as it were from the sky, the Great Woodcock Saga.  In a moment the events of the morning were forgotten, brows cleared, tempers were picked up, and an eager hilarity reigned over the company, while the adventures of the wonderful bird were pursued from tree to tree, from clump to clump, through all the zig-zags of his marvellous flight, until he finally vanished triumphantly into the unknown.

Now the Great Woodcock Saga is brought about in this way:—­First of all suppose that a woodcock has shown himself somewhere or other during the morning.  If he was seen it follows, as the day follows the night, (1), that everybody shot at him at the most fantastic distances without regard to the lives and limbs of the rest of the party; (2), that (in most cases) everybody missed him; (3), that everybody, though having, according to his own version, been especially careful himself, has been placed in imminent peril by the recklessness of the rest; (4), that everybody threw himself flat on his face to avoid death; and (5), that the woodcock is not really a bird at all, but a devil.  The following is suggested as an example of Woodcock-dialogue, the scene being laid at lunch:—­

[Illustration]

First Sportsman (pausing in his attack on a plateful of curried rabbit).  By Jupiter! that was a smartish woodcock.  I never saw the beggar till he all but flew into my face, and then away he went, like a streak of greased lightning.  I let him have both barrels; but I might as well have shot at a gnat.  Still, I fancy I tickled him up with my left.

Second Sportsman (a stout, jovial man, breaking in).  Tickled him up!  By gum, I thought I was going to be tickled up, I tell you.  Shot was flying all round me—­bang! bang! all over the place.  I loosed off twice at him, and then went down, to avoid punishment.  Haven’t a notion what became of him.

Third Sportsman (choking with laughter at the recollection).  I saw you go down, old cock.  First go off, I thought you were hit:  but, when you got that old face of yours up, and began to holler “Wor guns!” as if you meant to bust, why I jolly soon knew there wasn’t much the matter with you.  Just look at him, you chaps.  Do you think an ordinary charge of shot would go through that?  Not likely.