DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 105 



going there, the subject of conversation was guns 

 and accidents. Guns were evidently a terror to 

 the doctor and I, having witnessed an accident 

 with a gun, have my respect for that instrument 

 most fully developed : when it is in safe hands I 

 don't think of it, but when in a youngster's hands 

 and held in my direction I squirm. The doctor 

 rather liked the tale of the squire who, on being 

 interrupted during dinner to be told that John 

 Byles, a beater, had been shot, said : " Oh, give 

 him a rabbit," and who, on learning that the man was 



badly shot, said : " D it, give him two then." 



Shooting is a serious business and there is no 

 room for larks nor negligence ; you should be as 

 smart in handling your gun as if on parade and 

 with the general's eye upon you. I would not say 

 that occasion might not arise for a bit of fun where 

 a gun is involved, for I was a witness to a little 

 game of the late Mr T. Hoole when he was station- 

 master at Wraysbury, where the River Colne passes 

 close by. Being a keen fisherman he had a fisher's 

 eye for the river's visitors, whether they came on 

 legs or wings. There was another official at the 

 station who sometimes disturbed duck, that had 

 come in the night to feed on the weedy shallow, 

 by the clang of altering signals. Now and then, 

 by a stealthy look round with a gun before com- 

 mencing work, he got a shot. Hoole, ever full of 

 tricks and fun, borrowed from Squire Walker's 

 keeper a decoy, the most natural imitation of a 

 duck that I had ever seen, and, while the shooter 

 was off from duty, fixed it to a sunken peg that had 

 a staple, through which a second cord ran from the 

 bird to a pale of the platform fence. 



