r an old cock pheasant come crashing
down. There's something very satisfactory about the noise he makes."

"It's too horrible."

"Wait and perhaps you'll find that you have a few primitive instincts
left in you. You may be free of them; some people are. It isn't only
the passion to kill, though. It's the passion to get over obstacles
and do something immensely difficult. That's why walking-up birds is
better than driving. When I've got a gun I want to hit an object which
is incidentally a bird. It isn't the killing that matters."

"But why don't you shoot at targets or clay pigeons?"

"There you have me. I suppose at that point the savagery comes in. It
isn't the same to shoot at disappearing targets, and that's all one can
say. Hullo, they're starting, we'd better stop talking."

Far away at the back of the covert arose the noise of cracking twigs
and trampled leaves: closer and closer it came until the sounds were
distinguishable, now the tapping of a stick on a tree, the beating of a
bush, the long-drawn cries of "Mark" and "Forward," the swift whir of
wings, and at last the sharp crack of guns. The woods, once awful with
still silence, were all sound and movement. The gun, behind whom
Martin and Freda were standing, had only one chance and took it--a
beautiful right and left. The second bird fell close to them, crashing
through branches to a soft bed of leaves. Freda gasped and jumped
forward. The drive was over.

"You wanted it to fall?" said Martin, taking up the warm, motionless
body.

"I think I did," she confessed. "But only for a moment."

"It seemed right, didn't it?"

"I suppose so. But I couldn't touch it." She paused. "Yes, I was
glad when he hit them both," she added. "The strain of waiting and
looking and listening seemed to make it all different. And he was so
quick. I can't think how he could have got round to the second. It
was all wonderful in a horrible, alluring kind of way."

"I was right," said Martin. "There is something in it, you see."

He was glad that she understood: it gave them another point in common.
The next beat would take them some way from home, out to the bleaker
side of the woods. Martin proposed that they should wait until the
guns returned and Freda was willing. They went to the pines where the
ground was clean and firm and there on a bank they waited.

And there too Martin became more than ever aware of Freda. She was
digging her toes in