At first, it is perfectly safe to fire into
the circle, but as it diminishes in size, a horn is sounded, the
guns face round, back to back, and as the beaters advance alone,
hares are only killed as they run out of the ring. Hares are very
plentiful in North Germany, and "Kettle-drives" usually resulted
in a bag of from thirty to forty of them. To my surprise, in the
patches of oak-scrub on the moor-lands, there were usually some
woodcock, a bird which I had hitherto associated only with
Ireland. Young Vieweg was an excellent shot; in common with all
his father's other guests, he was arrayed in high boots, and in
one of those grey-green suits faced with dark green, dear to the
heart of the German sportsman. The guns all looked like the chorus
in the Freischutz, and I expected them to break at any moment into
the "Huntsmen's Chorus." Young Vieweg was greatly pained at my
unorthodox costume, for I wore ordinary homespun knickerbockers,
and sported neither a green Tyrolese hat with a blackcock's tail
in it, nor high boots; my gun had no green sling attached to it,
nor did I carry a game-bag covered with green tassels, all of
which, it appeared, were absolutely essential concomitants to a
Jagd-Partie.
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