BEGINNING TO SHOOT 113 



powder-flask was rather an ingenious contrivance ; 

 the sound of the shot rattling down the barrels, too, 

 was attractive. Wads were quite in the nature of 

 luxuries. We used to load with scraps of news- 

 paper, white or brown, in place of wads, whilst, at 

 a pinch, leaves, green or dead, would serve. 



These experiences with the muzzle-loaders belong 

 to very early gunning days — to the time when I 

 could only expect a stray shot now and then, and 

 when the gardener's boy was not weeding rather 

 than poll-jay-openly or rabbit-on-the-sly shooting, 

 or when the keeper was in a good-natured mood. 

 They are odds and ends pertaining perhaps more 

 to the bird-nesting and the catapulting period than 

 to the gunpowder and shot. I did not, as it were, 

 graduate a gunner till a year or two later, when my 

 brother got a new central-fire breech-loader, and gave 

 his old one to me. Then all at once I was fairly in 

 the thick of it. My gun was a twelve-bore central- 

 fire with rebounding hammers, which — being short 

 of ready money — I parted with long before it was 

 worn out. 



I used to take that gun about with me to places, 

 and at times when there was little chance of shoot- 

 ing. I. took it to college, for instance, and kept it 

 proudly in my rooms. It was only used twice 

 there, and neither occasion redounded in the least 

 to my credit. Once after dark, for a lark, I fired it 

 between quads — pointing well up into the air of 

 course, in the direction of Christ Church Meadows 

 — the idea of myself and my conspirators being 



H 



