The Gate Marked Private

There came the whir of wings from the edge of the Long Copse on the northern boundary of Staple Farm, followed immediately by the sharp report of a gun, and a bird came hurtling down through the deepening dusk of the November day and fell with a thud on the ploughed land that stretched away from the cospe to the sky-line in a low rise. The man with the gun spoke to his dog who plunged forward in a hustle of swift obedience and brought the dead bird to his master's feet. There was a movement in the copse as he stood to pick it up, and another man came out into the open and moved over the heavy ground towards him.