The moor having been shot over, we made our way to the house. It was now nearly three o’clock, and I felt tired, though not too tired to eat. The farmer’s daughter had laid our luncheon in the seldom-used parlour. There were sandwiches, mince-pies, a basin of clotted cream, some whortleberry jam, and a plate of sturmer pippins. These last were grown in my friend’s garden on espaliers, and he could generally produce one or two even when the next year’s fruit reddened the quarrenden-tree in the corner by the bee-skip. We stayed but a short time, as I thought, over our lunch, for we needed daylight to find our way down the bottoms, and snow had begun to fall again. From between the half-drawn curtains, where an ostrich egg hung, I had seen the big flakes. So bidding adieu to the dear old lady, we made our way down the hill, and at length reached the clump of firs in the bottoms, where my friend stayed to light his pipe. I should not have mentioned so trifling an incident, had it not been that he used the tinder-box for the purpose. This was his almost invariable custom, except in summer: then he preferred a burning-glass, especially when deep-sea fishing. With a twinkle in his grey eyes the farmer remarked, “Like Mr George, edna?” and shortly after, at a spot where, as the curve of the drift showed, was a gap, he left us and was soon lost to sight in the blinding snow. We had rather less than a mile to go before striking a road, but our progress was poor, owing partly to the drifts, partly to the rough ground that lay under the even surface of the snow. A candle was burning in a window of Hendra farmhouse as we passed the lower pond, and when we came in sight of Boswednan lane we saw the lights—the welcome lights—of a carriage that was awaiting us at the foot of the hill. Of the drive home I know nothing, as I slept soundly the whole way.
Thus ended a day’s sport which lives in my memory when days since enjoyed on grouse-moors and by woodland coverts have been well-nigh forgotten, big bags notwithstanding.
Since penning these lines, I have turned to my friend’s diary. These are his brief entries for the two days:—
“25th December.—Heavy fall of snow. Sharp frost. Bunches of duck and geese in the bay. Seine shot at Mullion. Bonfire on Poldhu Cliff. Eleven loads of fish up by five o’clock next morning, when I left Newlyn cellar.”