26 l^ACT AGAINST FICTION. 



'prefcrahle to the last, as noise and scaring of the 

 winged game is turned into some use, and besides 

 this it saves fine gentlemen the trouble of walking. 

 They can take out a garden-stool Avitli them, and 

 sit and smoke with their loader and their three 

 guns resting upon the bank beside them, and if 

 the weather should be too hot or too wet, their 

 loader can carry an umbrella. 



1 j)refer '' the drive'' infinitely to the '^ tram]Ding" 

 in a noisy line, and generally in a ^^ drive" on the 

 moors or fields, the space requires guns to be sta- 

 tioned at comfortable distance from each other, and 

 there is no clashing of shots at the same doomed 

 bird. The shots themselves, to some men, are much 

 more difiicult, and that, too, enhances the pleasure 

 of the sport; and w^liat is more, the shooters only 

 run the risk of being shot by one man, their OAvn 

 loader, instead of eight or ten.* 



In closing this chapter I must give my friends a 

 caution — at least those of my friends who, like 

 myself, can't afibrd to take abput with them their 

 own loader in charge of the cartridge-bag. It has, 



'" Alas, the accidents wMcli have happened, and ^vhicll might 

 have been avoided, in the shooting season closing in lfe74, have 

 been of a horrifying description. 



