64 Sporting Sketches in Pen and Pencil. 



dangerous place, and informed that they were trespassing ; but they chose 

 to stop. A bird got up and skewed round to the left. My friend missed 

 it, and I wiped his eye and the bricklayer's arm at the same time. I did 

 not see him at the moment, and thought they had gone. It happened 

 that there was a road some distance off on the other side of the wall, and 

 it was just within the hundred yards. The result was a summons to Union- 

 street, and old Hall, the magistrate, adjudicated. He heard the case. 



" Let me see the bullet," he said, and three No. 6 shot, which had been 

 picked out of the man's arm, were handed in. 



" Well ! well ! well ! " he said, " that wouldn't hurt much." 



I thought to myself, " Old gentlemen, if you'd give me a running shot 

 at fifty yards I think I could convince you to the contrary ! " 



We had to arrange with that son of labour at the rate of half a sov. 

 per shot, and then his mate, who hadn't been shot, wanted* compensation 

 too — which, of course, we declined; and accordingly he went back to 

 the worthy magistrate and asked for a summons. 



" But," said the magistrate, " you weren't shot ! " 



" No ; but I might have been ! Sure, didn't I run the same risk, 

 and haven't I lost the day's work coming here ? " 



" Go away, man, and don't waste my time talking ! " and the irate 

 Hibernian was handed down, to his intense disgust. He couldn't under- 

 stand it at all ; and then that miserable old Morning Herald, I remember — 

 which very properly died for its sins years agone — had a wretched 

 quasi-funny article about three Cockney sportsmen who, &c., &c. The 

 Cockney sportsman was a great and all-pervading institution in those days. 

 Thanks be, he's quite dead — and very much biu-ied too. 



I don't care much about a regular slaughtering day with a spare 

 gun and a loader. If I can shoot fifty or sixty cartridges it is good 

 enough for me, and if I can account for two-thirds of them I am satisfied 

 that I have done better than usual ; and if a cock or two intervenes it 

 spices the day. But an incessant fusillade with lots of hot corners, and a 

 pile of dead to collect every now and then is rather too much of it. 

 Enough is as good as a feast ; and one gets stagnated with a surfeit. I 

 am afraid in this respect, however, that I shall find few persons to be of my 



