roaring water from the marble buttress which broke the torrent into its first fall.

"What ails him?-dares he not follow?" said Machiavelli, breathlessly. "And now, look you, he is bending forward as if listening to some one speaking within the cavern!"

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Perchance 'tis the knight yelling for aid!" said he of the motley, leaning forward, as if he too would endeavour to catch the sound. "And now the priest hath got the better of the soldier in him! mark, how like a man pursued by wolves he is hurrying down the precipices as if tempting fate to pitch him headlong into death."

He has joined them-tells a breathless tale-and see you they are all rushing to the rocks on your side!" said the Florentine, whose companion was seated a little further on the bridge towards the shore opposite to the convent. At this instant the deep bay of bloodhounds discovering a scent, was heard.

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What has happened?" exclaimed the motley, hurriedly, and gazing intently below. Men-at-arms and monks seemed alike rushing in delirious excitement over the shallow river, and vanishing rapidly one after the other in a dark fissure of the rocks.

"My life on it, they have discovered the saint's road to his hermitage!" exclaimed Machiavelli.

"Migueloto, if thou hast deceived me!" muttered the jester, springing up like a startled tiger, and leaping with the agility of the same animal over the Florentine, who still lay on the bridge, he hurried down the rocks. Messer Niccolò followed more leisurely, but the jester continued to hasten along, striding with such rapidity that on reaching the shore he nearly overthrew Messer Bembo, who was wringing his wet clothes and distractedly chaunting a hymn of thanksgiving.

"What is discovered? what hath happed?" exclaimed the Florentine.

Messer Bembo could merely point to the opposite rocks, and then he laughed hysterically, wiping the tears from his eyes at the same time.

for

The nimble jester waited not to learn what might be the precise cause of this excitement. He vaulted from stone to stone across the river, and reached a yawning fissure in the rocks up which the glare of light, the distant shouts, and the continued howl of the hounds, convinced him that there was a way discovered. This passage in the rock had probably existed ever since the earthquake which had reft a way the torrent itself, and ascended in a frightful zig-zag, sometimes completely closed in by a kind of natural arch of huge marble blocks, at others cloven to a vast height so as to admit a pale streak of light. After winding as it seemed for a great way through the dark entrails of the mountain, the passage terminated in the cavern below the torrent. A singular spectacle awaited the gaze of the eager jester. The cavern was of great extent, composed of enormous masses of rock tossed together in chaotic confusion, and glittering all over in the blaze of the innumerable torches as if with serpents of coloured light, so singularly brilliant and twisted were the stalactites and petrifactions which clustered on it. One rock indeed there was in which a strong effort of the imagination might shape some resemblance to a crucifixion. Fastened to this by an iron rivet, a chain, and a belt round his waist, lay the figure of a man palpitating and struggling like a fallen horse,

while the two knights, the Carthusians, and the men-at-arms, in a delirium of excitement, were endeavouring to break the massive links with blows, with their teeth, with exertions of main strength! Some embers of dry drift wood still burned near the prisoner, and had probably been the means by which he kindled the flames which had encouraged his deliverers to his aid; and but just in time, to judge by the cadaverous paleness of his features. The two hounds, which had evidently been beaten from their scent, stood licking their jaws and howling at a distance.

THE MOORS AND THE STUBBLE;

OR THE

12TH OF AUGUST AND 1ST OF SEPTEMBER.

BY FREDERIC TOLFREY,

Author of the "Sportsman in France,” and “ Sportsman in Canada."

THERE are two great days in the year-a pair of goodly anniversaries. With reverence and devotion do we hail their coming, and confessing as we do to have been born under the influence of a shooting star, we welcome with an intensity and earnestness which none but the real sportsman can appreciate, the advent of the 12th of August and 1st of September.

No annual epochs, birthdays not excepted, are looked forward to with such irrepressible delight and joyful anticipation by the enthusiastic shooter. These national anniversaries are held as sacred by every true knight of the trigger, as the 30th of January is by her Majesty's servants of the patent theatres.

From time immemorial the 12th of August has been a day of destruction to the grouse, and the crusade against the partridges invariably commences with us on the 1st of September.

We have watched with no little attention and anxiety for some years past the operation of the Game Laws. They have undergone revision by the legislature on more than one occasion; and, Heaven knows, at the present day they require amendment more than ever. The game bill, as it now stands, has not effected the purpose for which it was enacted, viz., the annihilation of poaching.

Has not the Bill, on the contrary, materially assisted the poacher in carrying on his nefarious trade, by affording him an open market for his unlawful spoil? No doubt the sale of game is extremely convenient to some bankrupt landed proprietors, and by such needy gentlemen the present game laws are viewed with indifference; for so long as they can covertly supply Leadenhall market, they will tacitly lend their aid to uphold this unsportsmanlike legislative enactment.

Let any person, sportsman or not, examine the greater part of the game exposed for sale in the shops of this metropolis; he will then find that nine birds out of ten, and hares in the same ratio, have not fallen by the gun; as he will not be able to discover the marks of shot, or those imprinted by the teeth of a dog; for on inspection it will be evident that the birds have been netted and the hares wired.

It is but too well known that the poachers adopt these methods of

ensnaring game; and game so taken being comparatively uninjured, the poulterer will give a longer price for it, in consequence of the birds not spoiling so soon as when brought down by the gun. The Act, therefore, as it now stands, instead of counteracting the system of wholesale plunder, affords it every facility, and to all intents and purposes encourages it; and it is an indisputable and undeniable fact that, ever since the present Act was passed, poaching has increased in a frightful degree.

One of our oldest and best sportsmen has taken up the subject, and in the House, as well as in a pamphlet remarkable for good writing and an admirable analysis of the laws, has suggested the only effectual remedy for the existing evils; and we, in common with every sportsman in the kingdom, most devoutly hope that the hints and advice so forcibly and clearly offered by Mr. Grantley Berkeley, will meet with the attention they deserve and that the case demands.

We would with submission suggest that a discretionary power should be vested in the magistrates of every county, to regulate the commencement of the shooting season according to circumstances.

In this variable climate it may so happen that the harvest is not over on the 1st of September; and in all backward and unpropitious summers, when cold or rain has retarded the process of incubation, the birds or rather "cheepers" ought to have a respite for three weeks or a month.

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They manage matters differently, and decidedly better, in France. In every commune" or district of every "departement," or county, on the other side of the channel, the mayor is empowered to postpone the "ouverture de la chasse," if the whole of the corn from off every farm and estate within his jurisdiction is not safely garnered. Consequently there is not any fixed period for the "opening day," and we hold this to be a very wise and wholesome regulation. We have lived much in France, and have had frequent opportunities of observing the benefits resulting from this judicious law. In certain localities more favoured than others, and with the natural advantages of superior soil and propitious climate, the campaign is permitted to commence on the 1st, but it more frequently happens that the day fixed upon for exterminating the partridges is postponed until the middle of the month.

During a short residence in Upper Normandy, in the year 1841, we had the opportunity of enjoying four "first days" consecutively in four different districts or parishes. The 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th, were the several "firsts of September," as an Irishman would say, and even then some patches of grain were still standing. This was in the neighbourhood of St. Aubin, not far from the upper "grande route" leading from Yvetot to Havre. As we have already remarked, climate, soil, and local peculiarities should be taken into consideration, and it is little short of folly to establish as a rule, and authorize by law, the commencement of the shooting season on a particular day all over England. It is an oversight, to say the least, and one that should be looked to; for it does not require a conjuror to tell us that there are many degrees of difference, as well as difference of degrees, between the climate of Devonshire and that of Northumberland or Yorkshire, and that when the harvest is over in the one county the sickle is not even in requisition or thought of in the others.

We do not hesitate to assert that nine years out of ten we shoot

too early, and our opinion has been formed in that best of all schoolsexperience. We have no little pride in stating that in this we are borne out by that emperor of sportsmen and universally beloved individual-the "beau ideal" of a British officer and English gentlemanColonel Hawker.

We had the pleasure of canvassing the subject with the gallant colonel not long ago in the "sanctum sanctorum of the Reverend Bishop of Bond Street; the snuggest and best appointed room in the metropolis; where, with the worthy prelate's permission, all the cognoscenti of the day do congregate to discuss matters appertaining to shooting, and where the facetious and fascinating Bishop does business in the gun way to no small amount, as agent to the renowned Westley Richards. In his imperishable work on guns and shooting, Colonel Hawker has, in a few words, pointed out the principal evils which call for revision and amendment; and coming as they do from such high and influential authority, we most piously hope that they will meet with due attention in the proper quarter, and, by being acted upon, defeat the mischievous attempts of those whose only aim is to excite discontent, create an ill-feeling in the minds of the humbler classes towards their superiors, and strike at the root of an Englishman's first and noblest amusement.

If we can spy into futurity a little, the year 1845 will deserve a notch in the sportsman's calendar. The early part of the year was peculiarly favourable to the young broods of grouse, partridges, and pheasants. In certain swampy localities under the Yorkshire hills, the Sheffield moors, and a very few Scotch, an epidemic exhibited itself for a short period amongst the grouse, but it was as slight as partial, and the packs were not thinned to any extent. The most favoured quarters were spared this unwelcome visitation, and, as we have observed, there is no lack of birds. We have a letter before us from a gamekeeper and dog-breaker who is engaged by a party in Inverness-shire, and he tells us that the season is unusually propitious, and that the grouse are not only in abundance but marvellously strong on the wing. From Wales, and in Yorkshire too, the accounts are equally favourable.

Grouse-shooting differs materially from partridge-or as it is commonly termed by the sportsman-bird-shooting, for the fatigue attendant upon, or rather consequent to, this description of sport is inconceivable. It will be in vain to enjoy grouse-shooting without a little previous training, and unless the amateur exercise himself and quadrupeds à la Mountjoy or Captain Barclay, for some time previously to the "opening day," he will be sorely discomfited and disappointed. We would, in the spirit of good fellowship, recommend all enthusiasts to take a constitutional walk of a few miles before breakfast, over hilly ground, and as near the proposed scene of action as possible; that shooter in particular who is inclined to corpulence and obesity will derive no little benefit from a three weeks' probation. He will get himself and his dog into wind, and both will be in better trim for the campaign, by a knowledge of the surrounding country. Amongst the " élite of our London men we have some first-rate sportsmen, but the round of amusements, the engagements and the dissipation attendant upon a town life, preclude the possibility of an intimacy springing up between themselves and their dogs. How then, we would ask, can any mutual good feeling or even understanding exist between them? and

without this kind of freemasonry it is next to impossible to command success. A really good sportsman, and one who thoroughly understands his work, will make a friend and companion of his dog; a feeling of self-interest alone-should no other exist-would dictate the policy of keeping up something like good-fellowship between man and dog. We speak from experience and observation. We remember, not very long ago, when on a particular moor in Yorkshire, falling in with a very gentlemanly companionable "brother chip " from this demoralized metropolis, armed with one of Purdey's first-rate doubles, and accompanied by a remarkably handsome likely-looking setter. The "Lunnuner" happened, unfortunately, to be surrounded by sportsmen, and as there was not any intimacy existing between himself and his quadruped, he did little or no execution. The dog not being familiarized with his master's voice was always at fault; the whistle was equally useless; and as we happened to be the nearest compagnon d'armes to the denizen of St. James's, his dog was repeatedly running to us whenever we fired, which desertion called. forth curses both loud and deep from his exasperated master; and yet we have no doubt the gentleman in question never imagined that he, by wilful negligence, had brought all the disasters upon himself. Our St. James's friend, in short, cut but a sorry figure, and was not a little jealous of the manifest advantage we maintained during that and every succeeding day. He was an intelligent and wellinformed person enough, and had a smattering of Shakspeare to boot, ever and anon indulging in a quotation, for at every contretemps" he was heard to curse the fate that gave him to the Moor."

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It is a generally received opinion that too many guns spoil sport. This to a certain extent may be true, but a few do good and materially assist each other. The more sportsmen there are in moderation, on a given number of thousand acres, the better will be their chance of success, for this simple reason, they drive the birds to one another.. We need only mention, in corroboration of our assertion, that a friend of ours, an excellent sportsman, had permission to shoot over a private manor, not far from the spot where we were enjoying ourself in Yorkshire. There was no lack of birds, but they were exceedingly wild, and although provided with excellent dogs, he seldom succeeded in getting within shot of them. After two blank days, or nearly so, he crossed the country to the position we had taken up. He was somewhat staggered at first on seeing so large a field of guns, but found out, to his astonishment, that the numbers contributed to his sport, and materially assisted each other.

The dress of sportsmen in the present day differs materially from the costume adopted some quarter of a century or thirty years back. We have now such an infinite variety of woollen materials, light in texture, and of such excellent fabric, yet warm and waterproof withal, that we beat our forefathers out of the field. Their heavy, clumsy, ill-cut shooting jackets were a load in themselves to carry, and then the short "tights," or rather tight "shorts," with closely fitting leather gaiters and "high-lows," impeded the free exercise of the muscles, and the pressure at the knee, calf, and ankle was but too apt to add to the fatigue attendant upon every description of shooting. We are convinced that many of our brother sportsmen, in common with ourself, have experienced this discomfort; more particularly in a country much