132 A BIRD COLLECTOR’S MEDLEY. 
walking-stick with which I had never even tried to kill on the wing before. 
I refused several times, but at the end of the hedge was another at right 
angles to it, and connected by a five-barred gate. As we approached I 
remarked: ‘‘ Well then, I’ll pot it through the bars of that gate as it flies 
across.” I fired as it did so, and when we got up there lay the bird! 
I bought soon afterwards a twenty-bore walking-stick gun, second-hand, 
and an awesome weapon it proved to be. You never knew whether it was 
or wasn’t going off, and the man who sold it to me very untruthfully asserted 
that it could be used with or without its detachable stock. I tried it the first 
day at Aldeburgh without the stock, taking a sitting shot at what I hoped was 
a Dusky Redshank. I held it at half the length of my arm, and the thing 
came back like a piston, catching me just below my nose and knocking me 
more or less si!ly. Though conscious that I was badly hurt, the wound was 
somewhat numbed for the moment, and as the Redshank circled round 
and pitched on nearly the same spot, I was idiot enough to fire again, 
though this time I did so with my arm at full stretch. Again the gun 
sprang back, and caught me this time on the forehead, though without 
cutting it. I was now becoming painfully aware of the extent of my first 
injury, and made off home as fast as I could. I found a gaping cut all along 
the top of my moustache, and after it had been sewn up I went for a fortnight 
in mortal dread of a sneeze, and without even the acquisition of the Dusky 
to console me. I then returned the gun at a reduced price to the vendor, 
and fancy he is likely to do a good business with it before it eventually 
bursts, for I suspect the term ‘‘second-hand” was a bit of a euphemism 
ven when I bought it. 
Once in Norfolk I fully believed that I was the witness of an actual 
death. A man was shooting from a boat with very little regard for those 
outside it, as I had already become aware. Another shooter was waiting 
in an adjacent creek, and some shore birds came sailing over the sand. The 
man in the boat followed them shamelessly towards the shore tramper 
and fired. There was an awful shriek, and the man rolled over on his back, 
waving his leg frantically to the accompaniment of the most blood-curdling 
yells. We all rushed to the spot, the shooter ghastly to behold; but 
there was no tragedy in it after all. The fellow was shamming to give 
the other man a lesson, and that he most certainly did. 
For the benefit of those who missed it, I cannot refrain from conciuding 
with a story that was published in the ‘Globe.’ The scene was a Highland 
hotel, the hero a distinguished colonel returned from a day’s shooting along 
the shore. 
