Damascus, I can only presume the lucky "X" gun retained that peg throughout the course of the day. Whilst this may sound unfair, as you point out they were his Lordships birds and he could do with them as he pleased. Again presumably Guns would rotate over this peg , thus after the first drive gun 4 would move to No6,. Although this may sound rather biased there are many ways the Head Keeper and Under Keepers could control the results and impact, techniques such as banking in, flagging , sewelling position,beating speed and direction could all be tweaked to influence the No. and rate of birds going over Mr X's peg, last drive before lunch ensuring plenty of birds over peg X so he could endure plenty of ribbing over misses or congratulations on an exceptional performance. The afternoon drives being modified by surreptitiously adjusting the positions of the pegs. Either way I'm sure all the guns would have had a marvelous day out, grand lunch and gun X would have had to stand his fellow guns a good round at the hotel that evening or at the next Market Day.
All the Best this Boxing Day
