458 THE LAND'S END 



hoopoe and many other species, had been slaughtered 

 by men who call themselves sportsmen and gentle- 

 men. How is one to explain such a thing this base 

 destructive passion unless it be that the gentleman, 

 like the gamekeeper, cannot escape the reflex effect 

 on his mind of the gun in his hand ? He too has 

 grown incapable of pleasure in any rare or noble or 

 beautiful form of life until he has it in his hands 

 until he has exercised his awful power and blotted 

 out its existence. And how hard of heart the exercise 

 has made him ! 



One afternoon at Wells-by-the-Sea I entered into 

 conversation with a sportsman I found sitting on a 

 grassy slope, where he was waiting for the wild geese 

 which would come in by and by from feeding to 

 roost on the sand spit outside. He was, physically, 

 a very fine fellow in his prime, tall, athletic-looking, 

 with a handsome typical English face of that hard 

 colour which comes of an open-air life, with the 

 hard keen eyes so often seen in the sportsman. 

 Talking with him I discovered that he was also a 

 man of culture, a great traveller, a reader and a col- 

 lector of rare and costly books on certain subjects, 

 especially on the forms of sport he loved best. It 

 was impossible for me not to admire him as he 

 sat there reclining idly on his rug, thrown on the 

 green slope, smoking his pipe, his gun lying across 

 his knees, his big black curly -haired retriever 

 stretched out at his side. And at intervals, as we 

 talked, a little meadow-pipit, the only other living 

 creature near us, flitted out of the grass and, rising to 



