ii8 GUNS 



in the open. Some may say that there is not in 

 shooting with the sporting gun, at any rate shoot- 

 ing in England, a sensation equal, in the pleasure 

 it yields, to a perfectly successful stroke with the 

 cricket bat, or the golf driver or brassey. The 

 gratification you experience as you put your hand 

 over your eye on a bright day to watch the soar- 

 ing flight of the little white ball, till it falls just in 

 the right line a hundred and sixty or a hundred and 

 eighty yards away, is certainly ample ; and when 

 the right spot exactly in the bat — even the veriest 

 bungler wdth the bat has felt this — meets the 

 cricket ball, it does impart to you a sensation 

 worth lingering over in thought. Now a hard 

 shot clearly and neatly brought off may possibly 

 not be quite equal in the satisfaction it yields 

 — given a golfer and a gunner equal in keenness 

 over their respective pursuits — to the perfectly 

 successful drive ; for one thing it is over sooner ; 

 there is nothing here which quite corresponds 

 to that serene watching of the ball as it soars 

 from your smite. Mind I only say ** possibly," 

 for are there not pretty shots brought off in the 

 face of diificulties, that are remembered years 

 afterwards ? You will be able, very likely, twenty 

 years hence, not only to remember, but even to 

 point out the exact spot where you brought off 

 a hard right and left at birds or at rabbits — these 

 latter, by the way, do not nearly so often, in 

 most places, yield right and left shots as partridges, 

 pheasants, or grouse ; but when they do, the 



