634 Ifctngs of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, an& (Bun 



time nor money to further his great object ; and at last, 

 in that memorable July of 1860 at Wimbledon, " he saw 

 of the travail of his soul and was satisfied." He has 

 been dead these eighteen years, but he lived long 

 enough to see the great movement which he had 

 inaugurated strike its roots deep and firm, and the 

 Volunteer Army of Great Britain become a permanent 

 and popular establishment. 



And then there was the doyen of riflemen, Horatio 

 Ross, whose feats with gun and rifle on the moors, 

 among the stubbles, and in the deer-forest, I have 

 already recorded. Captain Ross was sixty years of age 

 when he came up to shoot at Wimbledon, and although 

 he had had plenty of practice at deer-stalking, had not 

 handled a rifle for target-shooting for more than five- 

 and-twenty years, and then under very different condi- 

 tions from those prevailing at the N.R. A. meetings. Yet 

 he took his place at once in the very front rank of 

 Wimbledon marksmen. He carried off the three great 

 small-bore prizes at long ranges the Association Cup, 

 the Any Rifle Wimbledon Cup, and the Duke of 

 Cambridge's for which all the crack shots of the day 

 competed. When he was in his sixty-sixth year he 

 wrote as follows to a friend : " I have begun my training 

 for the rifle season : I am shooting wonderfully well, all 

 things considered. Last week I tried the very long 

 distance of 1,100 yards, and made a better score than 

 is often made at that great range, seven bull's-eyes, 

 three centres, and five outers in fifteen shots." In June, 

 1867, I saw this wonderful veteran win the Cambridge 

 University Long Range Club's Cup at Cambridge 



