MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR xxxiii 



was an excellent shot, and always used an old pin- 

 fire gun until five or six years before his death. He 

 had had the pin-fire since he was a boy, and had 

 used it so much that it was positively dangerous. 

 He swore by black powder and number six shot, and 

 the noise the gun made when it went off was astoimd- 

 ing. Smoke came out all along the barrels (for there 

 were positively holes that you could almost push a 

 pin in down the barrels) and the reverberation was 

 as thunder. If they were shooting the adjacent coverts 

 one knew for miles around when " the Eector " was 

 in a hot corner — it was something like the guns at 

 Landguard Fort. He was induced one day to order 

 a new gun, and he was extremely pleased with the 

 hammerless ejector gun that he got, and came to 

 prefer smokeless powders to the old black. He had 

 many good stories to tell about his shooting experi- 

 ences, as, indeed, he had about everything else. He 

 was once shooting with a certain baronet, who was 

 also a distinguished colonial administrator. Included 

 in the shooting party was a bishop. The bishop was 

 not supposed to have had much experience of shoot- 

 ing, and the keeper had been specially instructed to 

 attend on the bishop and see that he shot — in the 

 right direction. The keeper, having a great respect 

 for rank and not having met a bishop before, was 

 sorely puzzled how to address him should occasion 

 arise. When the day's shoot was over, he confided 

 his trouble to his master. " You see, Sir Edward," 

 he said, "Dukes I know, and Hearls and sichlike " 

 (Sir Edward being evidently, in his keeper's estima- 

 tion, a "sichlike!"), " but I was wholly stammed 

 by the bishop." " Well," said Sir Edward, "what 

 did you say to him?" "Well, Sir," replied the 



