Uncle Sam (they always call me Uncle Sam, though I am not their uncle, and my name is not Samuel) is summoned to "look sharp, and dress." Too cognizant of the fact that Uncle Sam's only chance of peace is to obey, we splash into our tub forthwith, encase our person in an old velveteen and gaiters, and having gulped our coffee and hastily devoured our toast, find ourself at nine o'clock standing on the hall steps, and comparing guns with Jack, previous to a start for the arable. Two keepers, a brace of perfect pointers, and a retriever, are awaiting, even at that hour, impatiently, our departure for the scene of action.

Two miles' walk in the soft September air serves to brace our nerves for the work before us; and the head keeper and the Squire having conferred together like two generals, on our arrival at the seat of war, we at length find ourselves placed—I should perhaps rather say marshalled—in the turnips and ready for the fray. What a picture it is! how truly English! each sportsman's eye glistening with excitement and pleasure, as he poises his gun, each in his own readiest manner and favourite position, the Squire casting his eye along the line with the careful scrutiny of a field-marshal examining his forces previous to a final and decisive struggle; the two pointers, too well disciplined to show their ardour in gestures, standing mute behind the keeper; Jack with his gun full-cocked and ready to fire almost before the quarry is started; and his two brothers bursting with excitement, talking in hurried and ceaseless whispers behind the back of Uncle Sam, bearing no distant resemblance, as far as their half-checked ardour is concerned, to the brace of pointers behind the keeper. But there is no time for indulging in reverie as to the scene; a low "Hold up, then!" is heard from the head-keeper, the two graceful dogs bound forward, the line advances, and the action has commenced. A rabbit starts from under Jack's feet: Bang!—and the shot enters a turnip, a yard behind the little white stern hopping and popping to his burrow, despite the reiterated assurances of Master Jack that he is hit, and who forgets to reload accordingly. "Hold up!" to the crouching pointers, and away we move again, watching the graceful movements of the dogs as they work the field before us. Rake, a young dog in his first season, is breaking a little too much ahead; but ere the keeper's "Gently, boy!" had reached him, he has suddenly pulled up, and, with tail stiff and leg up, is standing, motionless as a statue, over a covey. We advance, in the highest excitement:—whirr! goes bird after bird almost singly; and our first covey of the season leaves two brace and a half on the field. One o'clock comes; we have steadily beaten turnips and stubble, clover and mustard, and we spy a man with a donkey and panniers on the brow of the hill in front of us. We beat up to him, bagging a hare and a single bird on our way, and during the half-hour that is allowed us for our bread and cheese and one glass of sherry, we enjoy to our heart's content the large delights of loosing our tongues, after several hours' rigid silence. But "time is up," and we are again on the move till six; we are tired, but we don't know it; we are hungry and thirsty, but we feel not their pangs, till, with our five-and-twenty brace behind us in the bags, we strike across the park on our homeward journey. Uncle Sam's gun is yielded up to Master Tom to let off the charge with the shot drawn; but he manages surreptitiously to obtain our shot-flask, and joins us on the hall steps with a dead rabbit, somewhat mauled, however, from the young rascal's having fired at it at ten paces. We sit down to dinner in high good-humour:—who is not, after a good day? We defend our sport before the ladies from the charge of cruelty, and retire to roost so tired that we take the precaution to lock our door, to prevent the too early and too sure incursion of the young Visigoths in the morning. Alas! for the days that are no more. Seven or eight years have passed since that pleasant day, and Downcharge Hall again welcomes Uncle Sam on the evening of the 31st, under its hospitable roof; I find the boys all grown into young men; Jack is a captain of Hussars, Tom is a subaltern in the Engineers, and Dick has just left Christ Church. They are still as fond as ever of Uncle Sam, though they occasionally venture so far nowadays, as to offer an opinion adverse to his on sporting matters, in which his word was formerly supreme. As I descend to dinner, I pass Jack's room. Hailed by its tenant, of course. I enter, and find him occupied, with care above his years, in the adjustment of his spotless white necktie, two of which articles, crumpled too much in the operation, are at present adorning the floor. "Think of shooting to-morrow, Sam?" (The title of "uncle" has been dropped since Jack first stroked his downy upper lip as a second lieutenant). I stand aghast. Here is a young man, full of health and vigour, on the evening of the 31st August, questioning a fellow-man, who has just travelled some hundred miles and more to Downcharge Hall, with his arm round his gun-case, as to his intention of shooting on the 1st of September. Entertaining a faint hope that, in the exuberance of his youthful spirits, he may be chaffing his old relative, I gasp out an affirmative, and, obeying the summons of the dinner-bell, descend the stairs. There is a large party of guests, but dinner proceeds with but one allusion to the morrow and that is from Dick, who exclaims, as he fingers the delicate stem of his champagne glass, "By-the-by, to-morrow will be the 1st." The piece of fowl I was that moment in the act of swallowing stuck in my throat; my appetite was destroyed, and I silently, but sorrowfully, resolved that for the future no prodigy could have power to amaze me. Our guests stayed late, and at half-past eleven o'clock, mindful of my early rising the next day, I began to grow fidgetty. By twelve o'clock, however, they had all gone; and having despatched the ladies of the house to bed, my hand was already grasping my bed-candle, when Tom arrested my intention, bidding me, in a voice of manifest astonishment at what he was pleased to call my "early roost," to come and do a pipe or two first in Dick's room. Labouring under the delusion that a quarter of an hour was about to be devoted to arranging our sporting plans, I obeyed, and after two hours in Dick's room, spent almost entirely in discussing the relative merits and demerits of certain ladies and horses, found myself between the sheets at last. Awaking with a start, in the morning, to discover it is eight o'clock, I dress with all possible speed, haunted the while with terrible pictures of impatient sportsmen below anathematizing my tardiness as they wait breakfast for me. I hurry down stairs,—the breakfast room is tenantless. My first impression is that they have been unable to curb their sporting ardour, and have started without me. Hearing a footstep on the gravel sweep without, I step through the open casement, and confront a pretty dairymaid bringing in the milk and cream for breakfast.

"Fine mornin', sir."

"Yes. Which way have they gone—can you tell me?"

"Same gait as ever, sir. Joe have druv 'em down agin the fenny pasture, arter milkin' up hinder."

"Ah! but the gentlemen, not the cows."

"The gentlemen, is it? Maybe if ye look in their beds ye'll see 'em this time o' day."

Heaving a mighty sigh, I leave the dairymaid, and stroll up and down the garden, listening with increasing impatience to the distant call of the partridges in the park. Nature at Downcharge Hall that morning was at all events beautifully still; there was a slight mist, too, gradually clearing off from the distance, which betokened very surely a broiling day, and made me long the more to get our seven or eight brace before the mid-day heat should come upon us. My longings and reflections, however, were suddenly cut short by a pitying butler, who had brought me out the Times, with the remark that "Master and the young gentlemen seldom has their