•SHOOTING AS IT WAS, AND AS IT IS. 25 



And such was the man, in these fast days, sup- 

 posed to he safe to send with a large party out 

 shootinG:. 



When keepers are appointed by their employers 

 to load the additional gun, when muzzle-loaders 

 are shot with, I often have seen, and no doubt I 

 shall still see, the loader walking along after his 

 master w^ith the gun held in a slanting position, and 

 the charge being rammed vigorously down in that 

 position, with that hateful new-fangled thing, the 

 ^' loading rod" — concussion enough given to knock 

 out the breeches, and by the slant, half the powder 

 lost b}^ damply sticking in tlie barrel, clinging to the 

 slanting sides, and at length balling beneath the 

 ill-directed wad. The order ought to be, ^^ stand 

 still while you load." To stand still, in these 

 days, or to take your time about anything, is 

 utterly beside the go-adiead fashion of the hour: 

 everything is at railway pace, and much, if not 

 all, that was once in high repute is irresistibly 

 run down. 



There is now another phase of shooting which 

 is fast going a-head of the tramj^ing in armies 

 through the fields, and that is, the driving of par- 

 tridges a^ well as of grouse. This new idea is /ar* 



