186 A BUNGLE AND A DILEMMA 



pall with years. The clubs are peopled with ex-fox- 

 hunters ; though in fairness it must be admitted that 

 it is the costliness of the chase that has made many of 

 them quit the saddle. As for shooting, it has suffered 

 so grievously from being overdone from the competi- 

 tive rage for record-breaking that it is only young 

 sportsmen who can feel the same ardour as evidently 

 inspired their grandsires, whom it is so refreshing to 

 contemplate in the highly coloured prints of the early 

 nineteenth century as, fearfully and wonderfully attired 

 in tall hats and prodigious gaiters, each of them carries 

 his 'Joe Manton' with a suggestion of zeal in true 

 woodcraft whereof the modern sport has lost nearly all 

 trace. In grouse and partridge driving, as well as in 

 covert shooting, it is the head-keeper, marshalling his 

 vast array of beaters, who alone needs to display sagacity 

 and resource ; all that is required of the guns is decent 

 marksmanship. 



But let me stick to my text, nor be led into dis- 

 paragement of any open-air sport, honouring as I do all 

 who, like the Douglas of old, loved rather to hear the 

 lark sing than the mouse cheep. Let angling stand on 

 its merits ; though on this matter I may speak only as 

 a fly-fisher. Many there be who thrill to the tremulous 

 float are not the members of Midland fishing clubs to 

 be numbered by the thousand ? Some will be found to 

 maintain that the right guidance of a spinning bait or 

 the conduct of a clear-water worm calls for qualities of 

 head and hand and nerve without which the mere 

 salmon-fisher may fare well enough. It may be so it 

 probably is non ragionam di lor one ought only to 



