Chapter XXX: "the Auld Un'"

We had intended to take our departure the next morning, but Sir William was so insistent that we should stay at least a part of the day that we decided to wait until the afternoon. This gave great pleasure to Ruth, who wished to see the garden--she is still dreaming of that country parsonage where she will have a garden of her own!

As there was nothing in particular for me to do our host suggested that I might take a gun and go out with him to "pick up a few rabbits." I told him the only ones I was likely to pick up would be those shot by some one else, for I had not handled a gun since I was in college. But, evidently, he felt about that as you would feel if a brother parson were to say that he was so rusty in his Greek that he could not read his New Testament. It would not seem credible!

You must know that nothing can be done in England without "dressing for the part." Sir William was already arrayed for the _battue_, but I had to get out some knickerbockers, which took time because the troublesome footman had put them away! However they were found at last, and they with my Norfolk jacket made me presentable, so we started with the keeper, who carried over his shoulder a sack in which were evidently live creatures of some sort, for the bag was constantly agitated. I hoped they might be rabbits for me to "pick up," but they proved to be ferrets.

When we reached the warrens these crawling creatures--which look like diminutive dachshunds--were shaken out of the bag and promptly melted into the earth. Soon there was heard a faint squealing, and the keeper announced that one of the young ferrets was killing a rabbit and would be of no further use to us. But the others had a deeper sense of duty, or were better sportsmen--which seems to mean the same thing--for soon the rabbits began to pop up all over the place. Sir William had potted two before I could get my gun to my shoulder. The keeper called my attention to the fact that it was necessary to "look lively," but that is a thing at which I have never been good.

However, I determined that I would do better the next time the rabbits appeared. This I did, for a moment later I saw a little bunch of fluff, no bigger than your fist, roll over and then lie still. One would have thought I had killed a bull moose, so generous was the applause of the keeper and Sir William. I felt like Mr. Winkle--or was it Mr. Tupman--when he shut his eyes and brought down the bird! I shot a number of times more but without success, and began to think I really must look more lively still. And I did! There were a few moments when no more rabbits appeared, though, from time to time, one of those slimy ferrets would come to the surface, stretch its long neck and look around to see if anything of interest appeared, and then silently melt again into the earth. Suddenly a head appeared from a hole some distance away. Sir William did not move--evidently had not seen it, so, thinking this was my chance I fired, and the creature rolled over, kicked once or twice, and then lay still.

I looked for applause, but as you may have noticed the audience does not always respond at the moment one expects!

There was a moment of silence, and then Sir William exclaimed: "Good Lord! You've shot the ferret!"

The keeper groaned as if he had lost his only child, and said, with tears in his voice: "It was the auld un'."

There was nothing to be said, and the keeper sadly buried his favorite, and I felt as if I were one of that party who had buried Sir John Moore:

"Not a drum was heard.
Slowly and sadly we laid him down!"

We walked away without a word. There came, however, to my mind a story Sir William had told me as we left the house in the morning, of an American who came over to one of the great "Shoots" in Yorkshire and asked his host as they started out the first morning, "How much he ought to give the keeper?" and he replied: "It depends upon where you hit him." I laughed then, but I was not laughing now! For I was wondering what sum would make good the loss of an "Auld Un'."

I gave the keeper what I could afford--indeed more--but I am not sure he will ever be the same man again! I know one thing. I could have bought a fat red deer for what that little handful of fluff cost me!

As we started to leave the little clump of pines which had been the scene of the murder, the keeper threw the sack on the ground and said to the boy who had accompanied us--to bring home the rabbits, I suppose--"You can bring 'em home, Jock."

He evidently had not the heart to gather up the remaining ferrets, and so strode away after Sir William. The boy looked up at me with a grin and held up the index finger of his right hand, on which there was the scar of a bite. I gathered that he and the "Auld Un" had not been the best of friends, and that there was one of the party who did not mourn its untimely death!

I hurried after the others, and when I caught up with them, broke my gun to eject the lethal cartridge and the one that had not been fired, but my host said: "Oh, I wouldn't do that; we might meet a grouse on the way back. Jenkins," he said, turning to the keeper, "have you seen any hereabouts?"

"There was a brace, Sir William, in the stubble-field this morning. They may be around now, we might take a look."

"I think, then," said Sir William, "we will cut through the Green Lane, and see what there is in that field."

We had hardly entered the lane when a bird rose from behind a bush with a whirr that startled me, but I fired almost without taking aim, and brought it down. There was an awful silence, and then Sir William said, in a strained voice: "I hardly know what we had better do. Still, as it is done, Jenkins, you had better send it up to the Hall."

"Excuse me, Sir William," said Jenkins, "but there would be a lot of talk in the servants' hall, and I think it would be better if I took it home with me and burned the feathers, and no one but ourselves need be any the wiser. Thank God, the boy is back there in the wood! And I don't suppose the gentleman will talk."

After a long pause my host replied, with a sigh, that he supposed that would be best.

Perhaps you will be asking, what was the trouble? I knew no more than you! At first I thought I must have killed the twin brother of the "Auld Un'" but reflected that ferrets do not fly. It could not have been one of the keeper's children as I feared when I caught a glimpse of his face, for children do not have feathers to burn! At last, I said, rather testily, I fear: "Would you mind telling what is the trouble?"

Sir William looked at me, more in sorrow than in anger, and solemnly replied: "It was a _pheasant_."

Even then I did not understand. But little by little it came out that I had committed the unpardonable sin. For the time of pheasants was not yet! There is a heavy fine for shooting them out of season, but that did not trouble my generous host. It was the shame of the thing! If it were ever known among his fellow sportsmen that he or his keeper had been seen with a dead pheasant in their possession before the appointed day, he was a ruined man!

Never again can I laugh at Mr. Winkle! It is true I had not posed as a sportsman, but I should have had the moral courage to decline to have anything to do with a sport which might bring sorrow to the owner of the beloved "Auld Un'," and entail a shameful secret on my kindly host.

Much as I like them, I was glad to leave these kindly people, and one of them at least, I am sure, was glad to have me go! I can only hope that I may not be hereafter bracketed in his mind with the miscreant who is suspected of shooting partridges "sitting"!