The Rev. Dean Hole 109 



of fussing over flowers, whether it was in advising as to the laying 

 out of somebody's vast new pleasure-grounds or tending the 

 humble window-box. 



His first achievement with a gun was to shoot a partridge in 

 August, thereby breaking a leash of laws : carrying a gun 

 without a licence, shooting game without a game licence, and 

 shooting game out of season. This bad start for a high eccle- 

 siastical career happened when he was a very small boy, and 

 a great admirer of the village good-for-nothing. One day he 

 accompanied this worthy to the cornfields, where he was 

 employed as a bird-scarer. Hole borrowed his ancient muzzle- 

 loader, which was charged to the muzzle with copious doses of 

 powder, shot, and newspaper wads, and set out to stalk a yellow- 

 hammer, but in the middle of the stalk a family of partridges 

 whirred over and the excitement of the moment was too much 

 for him. He discharged his formidable piece of ordnance at 

 the covey and brought down a bird, at which both he and the 

 village good-for-nothing were panic-stricken. Fortunately the 

 crime remained undiscovered and is still unpunished. 



When he grew older and was given a gun of his own, he went 

 through a strict course of training, his father making the 

 excellent rule that whenever the boy presented him with a view 

 of the muzzle he should be sent home. By this means he learnt 

 to be a careful shot, a thing that can only be taught when young. 

 It seems to be an undoubted fact that people who have got into 

 the habit of carelessness when young can never wholly get out 

 of it afterwards. In his time he shot in some of the best 

 pheasant-shoots in the country, but good rough shooting was 

 his favourite form of the sport. He could enjoy himself with a 

 dog and a ferret on a frosty morning among the rabbits quite as 

 well as at a swagger battue. In one of his books he has some 

 unfavourable comments on modern shooting methods. Most 

 people will agree with him in what he says about the shooting 

 of semi-tame hand-reared birds, but then he goes on to compare 

 the frugal shooting-lunches of his youth with the spreads of 

 to-day. He illustrates this by describing a typical lunch under 

 the trees, enjoyed in his young days. 



It consisted of Irish stew, puffs, cheesecakes, peaches, beer, 

 sherry, and brandy. It all sounds very nice, but I am bound to 

 say. in justice to modernity, that I have seen shooting-lunches 



