248 FIELD AND HEDGEROW, 



ungenlal, repellent crockery, a mockery, sham ! Now the 

 original wooden platter was, I think, true Art, and the 

 crockery copy is not Art. The primeval savage, with- 

 out doubt, laboriously cut out a design, or at least gave 

 some curve and shape to the handle of his celt or the 

 shaft of his spear, and the savages at this day as labori- 

 ously carve their canoes. The English sportsman, 

 however, does not cut, or carve, or in any way shape his 

 gun-stock to his imagination. The stock is as smooth 

 and as plain as polished wood can be. There is a sort 

 of speckling on the barrels, and there is a conventional 

 design on the lock-plate ; conventional, indeed, in the 

 most blase sense of the word — quite blase and worn out, 

 this scratch of intertwisted lines, not so much as a phea- 

 sant even engraved on the lock-plate ; it is a mere kill- 

 ing machine, this gun, and there is no Art, thought or 

 love of nature about it. Sometimes the hammers are 

 filed, little notches crossing, and there imagination stops. 

 The workman can get no farther than his file will go, and 

 you know how that acts to and fro in a straight groove. 

 A pheasant or hare at full speed, a few trees — firs as 

 most characteristic — could be put on the plate, and 

 something else on the trigger guard; firs are easily drawn, 

 and make most appearance for a few touches ; pheasants 

 roost in them. Even a coat of arms, if it were the 

 genuine coat-of-arms of the owner's family, would look 

 well. Men have their book-plates and stamp their 

 library volumes, why not a gun design? As many 

 sportsmen scarcely see their guns for three-fourths of the 

 year, it is possible to understand that the gun becomes a 

 killing machine merely to them, to be snatched up and 

 thrown aside the instant its office is over. But the 

 gamekeeper carries his gun the year through, and sits in 

 the room with it when indoors, still ,he never even so 



