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And in this way they continue on the whole to "diddle 'em,' though now and then, to be sure, the diddling is not entirely confined to one side. A slight reverse happens, for instance, in this way: You are supposed to have witnessed the deaths of two or three more brace and the hairbreadth escapes of a few destined victims (for our friends are both fallible occasionally), and the party-invisible spectators included-are in the act of rounding up what must surely be a covey. Cutter is now in charge of the intelligence department, and from his stony stare and petrified attitude there is evidently something more than a running old cock before him. By his side stands Stock, prepared to give a good account of both his cartridges this time; while the longer-legged Chambers, having made his tour and silently surrounded their quarry, is slowly advancing to meet them. It is a thrilling moment; Cutter absolutely refuses to budge; and

on

comes Chambers till they are barely ten paces apart.

"I don't believe there is anything" he begins, when in the very act of disbelieving the air is darkened by nine grouse who have been completely caught in two minds, and have

actually lain beneath the dog's nose till this moment. They know what to do now, however, and rising straight up in a solid body till they can clear Stock's head, sweep with the wind over the top of his cap. With an exclamation and & stumble he endeavours to do a swift right - about turn, but happening to be balanced on the edge of a peat-hag, this operation is attended with unlooked-for difficulty, and it is with tangled legs and a feeling as of performing some circus feat that he manages to put in two exceedingly unsteady shots. As for Chambers, a certain delicacy about blowing off his friend's head restrains his fire till the outside birds are clear of this hazard, and then-well, nothing else happens except that nine large grouse sail out of sight.

"May the Lord forgive me," says Stock in a solemn tone, "for what I am about to say."

While he is engaged in accumulating matter for forgiveness let us turn our attention to the equally discomfited Chambers. He also is commenting on the episode, though with more amusement and astonishment than anger, and then with then with a determined expression he proceeds to take imaginary shots at a mark to see that the gun is coming truly to his shoulder. For he is one of that somewhat rare class of shots who is never satisfied with an objective reason for a miss, but must always trace it to the contrary workings of his mind and muscles. He says little about his theories, but he is perpetu

ally going through this pantomime with a view to correcting the most recent fault he has discovered. The only disadvantage attaching to the procedure the disconcerting effect it has upon the dog. When at last Stock has finished his soliloquy and can attend to other matters, he is startled to see that Cutter, instead of setting about his business, is standing with an agitated air, evidently pointing at something fresh.

In an instant he has clutched his weapon and turned eagerly to his friend, to find that Cutter is only waiting for some tangible result to ensue from this firing exercise.

"When you have quite finished your small-arm drill we shall go on," he observes in a tone still affected by their adventure.

"I didn't know you had done swearing," says Chambers with unruffled composure; and this explanation being taken in equally good part, the two friends pound on. From strong internal evidence they know that it is time for lunch, but each is secretly burning to retrieve his reputation first. Fortunately the Fates provide them with an opportunity sooner than they perhaps deserve. On the side of a knoll Cutter comes to a stand, and the moment their heads show over the top a wild pair of grouse are up and away. is far out and swinging with the wind when Stock cuts short its career with a pretty crossing shot. The other mounts high in the air, and just as he is also going to

One

swing, Chambers throws up his gun and Mr Grouse bounces like a football as he strikes the heather. It is a quick pretty bit of shooting, and each man complacently calculates the distance of his shot as he slips in a fresh cartridge.

At that moment an inspiration visits the Lieutenant.

"Now for lunch!" he exclaims, and out come the cartridges again, and down they sit on the leeward slope of that same knoll,

As luncheon makes a considerable figure in many narratives of shooting, and particularly in the photographs that frequently illustrate that sport (where in a good reproduction you may almost distinguish the chicken-pie from the salad and guess the brand of the champagne), I therefore feel it no less than my duty to append the menu of our friends' repast. Here it is: ham sandwiches, jam sandwiches, and whisky; with tobacco and wax matches to follow. Yet though this may sound simple, and to some, indeed, scarcely sustaining, it is surprising how much enjoyment can be got out of a sandwich, and how much nutriment out of enough of them. Certainly our two friends seem entirely contented with their lot as they bask in the sunshine and watch the long moorland grasses tremble and bend before the wind, and the clouds float over the hill-top, and listen to the far-off piping of a plover. Wine would be wasted on them and dainty meats despised; the gifts they would choose from the storehouse of the gods, those at this moment they have,

and it is neither pity nor sympathy that I for one would throw away upon them.

"I defy any man to pick a quarrel with me now, says Chambers, stretching his long legs on a carpet of heath and blowing the smoke lingeringly from his lips. Stock grunts an enraptured assent, and there they lie and drink the nectar to its dregs.

No need to follow them step by step and cartridge by cartridge through the afternoon. The same things happen again and again,—and yet they are never quite the same. There is always, at any rate, difference enough to enable to enable our friends to recall each incident as a thing apart when they come to " grouse in the gunroom" at night. For one thing, there is the decided difference between hitting and missing which serves to distinguish these incidents. One is forced to the conclusion, both from hearing conversations and reading books, that in so simple a pastime as shooting over dogs, a miss ought to be as rare a curiosity as an Iceland serpent. Yet if you should take the gun from Stock or Chambers when little Rum comes to his next point, I think you would find that a lively grouse on a windy September day, getting up perhaps thirty yards away, and swinging as he rises, till in five beats of his strong wings he is going down-wind like an express train, requires a bit of stopping. Then perhaps the next bird will sneak up-wind, almost brushing the heather, and not to be

easily distinguished against it; while the next again will mount like a lark and then

moors.

abruptly dive downhill like a falling stone. And remember that you get no notice he is going to start, but are very possibly caught on top of an oscillating clump of heather or in the act of jumping a peat-hag; for it is pretty rough going over Lieutenant Stock's wind - riven Also you must be in tolerably good condition, for the carrying out of my friend's strategy is not calculated to steady the hand or clear the eye. In fact, he himself admits that "this steeplechasing doesn't help to improve the shooting"; and in his secret heart he envies a little his friend's long legs. Yet so long as he gets a few birds and a lot of exercise there is no happier man in all Scotland.

"Ten brace of grouse and five snipe," he remarks at last, "and won't I stick my bill into something wet when I get in!"

The day is at an end; the embers of the sunset are glowing in the western sky, and the light is fading gently; shadows already fill the moors, only the sea is clear; and it is time men turned to indoor things. And that is the whole story of this day's shooting. As for its bearing on the previous argument, I can only refer the invisible spectators back to the decision of the learned Justice Foxley. If you still think that fairly sums the case, do not at least confide this opinion to Mr Chambers or Lieutenant Stock.

MUSINGS WITHOUT METHOD.

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THE DEGENERACY OF THE RACE-WHAT EDUCATION HAS DONE FOR USTHE REMEDY PROPOSED BY THE DOCTORS THE DEATH OF MR KRUGER HIS TRAINING IN WARFARE AND STATECRAFT-A PUPPET OF ENGLAND'S ENEMIES-THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE-THE DEBT WE OWE TO FOREIGN TONGUES.

upon

To all those who take a pride in the wellbeing of their country, the the deputation of doctors which recently waited President of the Board of Education must have seemed of evil omen. One after another the most distinguished members of the medical profession declared that the English people is degenerating in health and strength, and that nothing is done by education or precept to check the degeneracy. "Ignorance," said Sir W. Broadbent, "is the parent of suffering and illhealth as much as vice, and it is ignorance that leads to vice." Dr Dryslwyn Griffiths insisted that there was abroad an ineradicable "prejudice against hygienic measures to prevent disease." Others complained that no attempt is made to instruct children to care for themselves, and that, though a mysterious subject entitled "hygiene" is optional in our board schools, it is taken by few, and most inadequately taught. But the consensus of opinion is unhappily general: the English race is rapidly declining, because it refuses to understand the advantages of open windows and clean food, and persists in ascribing a miraculous property to alcohol.

It is a heavy indictment, and with the evidence before us it is difficult to rebut. Despite our intelligence, despite that system of universal education which thirty years ago was devised to cure the ills of the nation, we are sunk in sloth and disease. We do not know that which the untutored savage tutored savage discovers by experiment. The march of the primer has abolished popular medicine, and has brought us nothing to take its place. We have fled from the evils of simplicity, which we knew well, to the evils of half-knowledge, the infamy of which we are only just finding out. But of the disastrous consequences which will dog this common ignorance, there is no doubt. England is a country of vast power and vaster ambitions. Her statesmen are sometimes wise and most often patriotic. She knows that she has interests and duties beyond her own narrow borders. But it is idle for her to speak or think "imperially" if her stunted sons are soaking their thews in alcohol and attempting to support their dwindling bodies upon innutritious food. Wisdom and patriotism fight in vain against disease and degeneration. In the last re

sort good health will always overtop policy and ambition; and if the ills which the doctors deplore are irremediable, the end of the British Empire cannot be far off.

But the worst side of the disaster threatening us is the lack of pride, which is its ultimate cause. Hitherto Englishmen have loved athletics, as they have never been loved save in ancient Greece. Physical strength and stout-hearted courage have seemed in their eyes the noblest of virtues. Ever since our ancestors learned to draw the bow, Englishmen have been the patient, simple worshippers of muscle. The enormous place which the prize - ring once held in the affections of the people was but a proof of the prevailing faith. Tom Sayers symbolised for the mob the merits of a stout heart, a heavy fist, and perfect condition. Though the thousands who went forth to see him had neither his courage nor his skill, he was still their ideal of manly prowess, and we like to believe that his example was both wholesome and deterrent. The average citizen who saw Sayers, compact and sturdy, face the Benicia Boy, vastly superior to him in height, weight, and reach, went home resolved to avoid the vices which make nerves and muscles alike flabby. Though it might never be his fate to stand in the ring, at least he might make himself no dishonourable compatriot of the valiant Sayers; by forethought and self-denial he might cultivate the qualities which so often gave the

victory to his hero; and if he were called upon to serve his country, he had learned, by example, the virtues of courage andendurance. But the Englishman of to-day is as poor in stature as in staying power, and his enthusiasm for the football-field is little else than an excuse for another glass. His pride, as we have said, is gone. He deems it no disgrace to be timid and undersized; he does not recognise the shame of disease; and, if he reads in his halfpenny paper of his own degeneracy, he probably shrugs his shoulders, and puts another shilling on a spavined horse.

The causes of the nation's decay are manifold. Yet in the first rank we must place the prevailing passion for life in towns. In the old days, before trade and education both were free, men were content to live in the country and to work in the fields. Wages were low, no doubt, and the days monotonous; but it was a monotony of wellbeing, not of anxiety. If there was no street-betting, and no musichalls, no short-skirted balletdancers to mistake for goddesses, and no empty tunes to hum with a raucous voice, there was cricket on the village green, and an excellent tap of wholesome beer at the village inn. And then the decline of agriculture and the sudden wealth of the factories drove the working man to the town and the gin-palace. For the clean air of the country he exchanged the close atmosphere of the workshop. He replaced the pleasant sounds

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