and had to trudge a mile or so before we got
into our preserves. There were some not unpromising covers; the lad
who was to be our guide professed some vague reminiscences of having
seen pheasants there "a bit ago;" and there was no question as to a
hare having been started so lately as yesterday morning. We began our
day, therefore, with somewhat sanguine expectations, which, however,
every subsequent half-hour's progress gradually dispelled. We tumbled
out of one deep ditch into another, scrambled perseveringly through
brambles and brushwood, saw places where pheasants _ought_ to have
been, and places where they had been, but never saw a bird except a
jack-snipe in the distance. The only sport we had was in the untiring
energy of the lad already mentioned, who, long after the dogs had
given it up as a bad job, continued to beat every bush as diligently
as at first starting, and kept up a form of hortatory interjections
addressed to the invisible game, with a hopeful perseverance which was
really enviable. One satisfaction we had; towards the close of the day
we started _the_ hare from a bush which had certainly been tried at
least twice before; she fell victim to a platoon fire of four barrels;
the second, I believe, brought her down, but we were anxious to have
all the shots we could get. And, in truth, there was some credit in
killing her, for Mr Nutt, to whom we presented her, declared that she
was so tough, he wondered how the shots ever got through her skin.

It takes something more serious than a bad day's sport to damp
youthful spirits; and upon our return we found the good farmer's wife
much more annoyed at our failure than ourselves. "Why, the chap as has
the deputation told my master he had killed ten brace of pheasants
there this season!" He killed the last he could find before he sent
us there, no doubt. Nothing dispirited, we sat down to a leg of
mutton, which Brown had so far departed from his household economy as
to order for us at six, and enjoyed our evening as thoroughly as if we
had been a triple impersonation of Colonel Hawker in point of
successful sportmanship. Nor was it until after the second bottle of
port that we began to accuse each other of being sleepy.

"Well," said I at last, "it is about time for us to be off; it wants
but three minutes of half-past eleven, and we shall have sharp work of
it now to get into college by twelve. What sort of a night is it?"

The shutters of the sitting-