ut 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.' Though she had dropped the squire so
lowly a curtsey, and in his presence would have behaved with profound
respect, behind his back and out of hearing she called him by his family
name without any prefix. The cottagers thereabout almost always did this
in speaking among themselves of their local magnate. They rarely said
'Mr.'; it was generally 'Filbard,' or, even more familiarly, 'Jim
Filbard.' Extremes meet. They hardly dared open their mouths when they saw
him, and yet spoke of him afterwards as if he sat with them at bacon and
cabbage time.

Squire Filbard and one of his sons were walking round the outlying copses
that October day with the object of driving the pheasants in towards the
great Filbard wood, rather than of making a bag. The birds were inclined
to wander about, and the squire thought a little judicious shooting round
the outskirts would do good, and at the same time give his son some sport
without disturbing the head of game he kept up in the wood itself. The
squire was large made, tall, and well proportioned, and with a bearded,
manly countenance. His neck was, perhaps, a little thick and
apoplectic-looking, but burnt to a healthy brick-dust colour by exposure
to the sun. The passing years had drawn some crows'-fe