CHAPTER II 



SOME EARLY EXPERIENCES IN SHOOTING 



One day in 1881 my old grandfather, George 

 Gray of Perth, must have had a stroke of luck, 

 for, much to my surprise, he asked me to name a 

 present he wished to give to me. " A first-class 

 pair of ejector guns," was my suggestion. With his 

 permission I consulted Messrs. Reilly, and bought a 

 magnificent pair of hammerless-ejector guns which 

 the firm had recently exhibited at the Paris 

 Exhibition. The subsequent bill rather startled the 

 old man, but he paid it with a good grace. 



These were, perhaps, the first pair of good ejector 

 guns ever made, and cost £120 — a large price at 

 that time — but they were well worth it, and 

 improved my shooting considerably owing to the 

 quickness of fire. The first day I used them they 

 proved their value. I had been hunting a certain 

 fine roebuck at Murthly, and with the three keepers 

 had beaten all the neighbourhood of the Arch with- 

 out seeing any roe at all. In the evening I took up 

 a position on a pass leading from a long strip of 

 wood to the moor, and was surprised to see a whole 

 herd of roe, numbering about twenty, coming to- 

 wards me. As they passed I killed the two leading 

 bucks right and left, and had time to get in another 

 cartridge and fire at the big buck who brought up 

 the rear of the herd. This animal ran some fifty 



81 



