Batty Clump was more or less in the middle of the Park. The long drive to the house passed it, at this stage bordered by a fence of post and rails to prevent the cows and horses from wandering onto the drive. Nearer the house and over a cattle grid, the drive was unfenced, the flock of dark brown Welsh mountain sheep which kept the grass smooth and well-cropped being considered less of a hazard. Batty Clump was a coppice of mixed Scots firs and deciduous trees, which had been planted during the re-landscaping of the Park by Sir Randolph’s grandfather a hundred years before; it afforded good cover for pheasants, and it was usual on the morning of a three-day shoot to send the beaters through it to drive the birds towards the belt of woodland on the outskirts of the Park. Two other clumps were driven in the same way. When the guns arrived the thick belt of wood on that side of the Park was driven towards them, and so by a precise plan of campaign each piece of ground which offered cover was driven towards a succession of stands, until in the afternoon there only remained the great wood which sloped down to the river. Wide green rides had been driven through this wood at intervals, affording stands over which the birds were known to fly high and fast, and culminating in the last stand of all at the end of the wood, where there were sometimes so many birds that even when the guns were placed three deep they were all kept fully occupied.

At precisely half-past eight the beaters, or rather that proportion of them who had been called for at this early hour – for another forty men were to meet them an hour later to start beating the bigger woods – began to walk slowly through the clump, tapping the tree trunks with sticks as they went and emitting a mixture of low-pitched churring, whistling and whooping sounds according to their various preferences. They wore long smocks made of thick whitish drill which came below their knees and gave them an antique look. The purpose was not picturesque but rather to give each man a distinguishing protective covering and to prevent unauthorized persons joining them – poachers spying out the land, vagrants hoping to claim a wage at the end of the day, even curious spectators.

Glass felt happier now that his army was on the move. His two dogs at his heels, he glanced along the line at the man next to him to make sure that no one was going too fast and moved resolutely forward through a tangle of bramble bushes.