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HAPPY MEMORIES
I have an old friend called Eddy with whom I used to hunt and shoot. He's
not very well now but I often remember the happy times we had together and
how young and fit he once was.
He had a mare who was more cart horse than anything. Built on the same lines
as the steeds upon which armoured knights of old used to ride majestically into
battle, she had feet the size of dustbin lids.
Riding up behind that mare at the gallop was a dangerous business because when
clods came off her thundering hooves and flew backwards you were in grave
danger of being unseated by the impact. These were not small clods.
When we were off to the meet she would cautiously lumber up the ramp of my horse
box - a converted 3-ton army lorry - as if she knew that it was touch and go whether it would take
the weight. When she was finally inside and despite the counter balance of my horse, the
Austin would lean drunkenly to one side and the springs would groan.
MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN
But it was Eddy's ESP dog that I can recall ever more fondly for that liver
and white maniac was as daft as any spaniel I have ever met and then some.
It wasn't so much that he was uncontrollable. I think frankly that he had a
few screws loose.
There was a day when Eddy and I and he - I'm afraid I forget his name - were
out with our guns and walking up a spiny of ash and chestnut with brambles
and crunchy autumn leaves underfoot. As was his wont, the useless dog was
out of sight and too far ahead to have been of any use.
Suddenly a rabbit got up from its seat just before I stepped on it and
rocketed forwards. As my gun came up, something else happened to prevent me
shooting.
Eddy had let out a whoop as the rabbit made itself scarce and the dog,
excited beyond measure by his masters voice, lost his marbles completely and
hurtled back towards us from his foraging mission yelling like a banshee.
He and the rabbit passed within a few inches of each other going in entirely
opposite directions but that daft dog, whom you would have fairly expected
to double back and take up the chase, instead turned at a sharp right angle
and shot out of the wood and into the adjacent field for reasons only known
to himself.
We didn't know where he was going. He didn't know where he was going. But
going somewhere, and as fast as he possibly could, was uppermost in that
hound's pea sized brain.
Now the field he was crossing was a permanent lay but out there, in the middle of acres of grass,
was a single solitary stalk of long dead and brittle thistle sticking up about a foot from the ground.
A PAINFUL ENCOUNTER
With all that space to evade it, the madcap instead - with his ears
trailing in his slip stream - straddled the hazard at high speed and the stick -
well, it was snagged by two primary parts of the poor chap's wedding equipment.
The yelp the mad animal gave out made both Eddy's and my eyes water for we
were close enough to see the cause of his agony and he
returned the way he had gone, very slowly and painfully, and very stiff
legged, looking for some comfort which he indeed got from both of us.
The old dog is long dead but not forgotten and when Eddy and I have a pint
or two in the village local, we still laugh at that episode many years back
and we still wince at the thought of it.
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