GUN STORIES 263 



earnestly : " I call you to witness it was my own fault." 

 The sight of his left eye was completely destroyed, but his 

 other injuries were not serious. Even after the loss of his 

 eye, Joe Manton the famous gun-maker said he would not 

 advise anyone to offer Mr Delme Radcliffe many dead birds 

 in a pigeon match. 



A remarkable recovery from a terrible gun accident was 

 that of Mr Thomas Smith, of Hambledon, a Master of 

 Hounds like his celebrated namesake, Thomas Assheton 

 Smith. When a boy, his head got in the way of a sports- 

 man aiming at a rabbit, and down went Tom, apparently 

 dead. He recovered, however, but his escape was 

 marvellous ; for a full charge of shot was taken out of his 

 head, and afterwards shown to him in a wine-glass. 



The man who loses his temper when shooting is a 

 person to be avoided, but he sometimes causes amusement. 

 A noble lord of an excitable nature was once rather put 

 out because he had so little sport, and sternly asked his 

 head keeper if they would find more birds in the next 

 covert. " I hope so, my lord," said the dependent. " Hope 

 so ! " roared the peer ; " do you think I give you a hundred 

 a year to hope ? Go and beat that wood this way and I'll 

 post the guns." " Your lordship means this wood," said the 

 functionary, pointing in an opposite direction. " No, I 



don't." " But, my lord " " Not a word more, sir. Obey 



my orders." The wood was beaten, but without the least 

 result, and his lordship's wrath was terrible until the keeper 

 managed to get out : " This is not your wood at all, my 

 lord ; it belongs to your neighbour, who shot it last Friday!" 



There are times, however, when it is difficult for a man 

 to keep his temper when shooting, and even so true a 

 sportsman as George Osbaldeston could not always pre- 

 serve his equanimity. He and Captain Horatio Ross were 

 admitted to be two of the best shots of their day, but they 

 both, on one occasion, gave a display of rascally bad shoot- 

 ing which was particularly mortifying under the circum- 

 stances. " During one of my visits to Ebberston 

 (Obaldeston's Yorkshire estate)," says Captain Ross, who 

 tells the story, " we were shooting the covert of Hutton 

 Bushell, ' the Squire's ' best beat for pheasants. A stranger 



