BEGINNING TO SHOOT iii 



loaded. Now it was sometimes rather a nice point 

 whether or not the keeper's muzzle-loader was 

 charged. If at the end of the day there remained 

 a charge in the gun, this was commonly not 

 drawn ; the trigger was gently let down upon the 

 cap, and the gun hung up or set in a corner. So, 

 until you had pulled back the trigger of the muzzle- 

 loader in the corner, you might not be able to tell 

 for sure whether it was loaded or not. Cases did 

 occur, moreover, in which the cap was removed and 

 the charge left undrawn, and then you might only 

 be able to say for certain whether the gun were 

 loaded or unloaded by probing with the ramrod. 



Hence accidents occurred from time to time — 

 to put it mildly — with these old guns. There was 

 the case of one man in our parts who loaded or 

 unloaded without taking the cap off the nipple — 

 gamekeepers, for instance, had often a great ob- 

 jection to wasting a good cap — the gun ^^went off," 

 and sent the ramrod through the centre of his 

 hand. On the whole the old muzzle-loader in the 

 corner of the parlour of a neighbouring farmer — 

 an old friend of mine whom I shall speak more of 

 presently — was a thing to handle circumspectly. 

 Once it had been in its corner, loaded, for many 

 weeks. At length it was taken out in view of a 

 day's shooting. The question was what would 

 happen when it was fired ? I have a dim recollec- 

 tion that somebody fastened it into a gate and 

 pulled a bit of string attached to the trigger — a 

 precaution against a possible bursting of the barrel. 



