12 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



penter. " Not a word would she listen to, an' I 

 crouchin' down thinkin' with the help of God she 

 would miss me, but that ache minnit 'd be me 

 lasht. An' I but in to mend the edge of the bath 

 before ye'd want washin'," said old Davy rising, 

 indignantly. 



My mother, who was never at a loss, merely 

 said that he really might have been a land leaguer 

 and how could she tell. I was severely reproved 

 for appearing with a poker, as I was not allowed 

 a weapon, and then sliding down the banisters 

 in a short night garment, and all would have been 

 calm if the sergeant and a constable had not come 

 racing to help and taken the explanation with some 

 annoyance. My private belief is that we were 

 never in any danger from outsiders (my father 

 was away at the time), but that we were from 

 loaded fire-arms in the house. The crack of a 

 revolver bullet and the wail of a faulty housemaid 

 who, dusting a fully loaded weapon, fired it off 

 through the wall into the next room, where the 

 bullet missed someone by an inch. And another 

 crash of glass and the wail of old Corbett, the 

 herdsman, as he sat down and bemoaned his death 

 by shot, were mere items in the adventures of 

 loaded weapons left about the boys' rooms. 



Poor old Jim Corbett, he was a man who never, 

 according to himself, missed his mark when he 

 fired. He always " med three halves of a crow," 

 and when little brown snipe scattered away after 



