Part 16

I well remember the first running rabbit I ever killed. I was armed with an old-fashioned muzzle loader--we were walking round the hedgerows in some pastures. The rabbit was sitting in a tussock about thirty yards from the fence. I cautiously advanced in such a manner as to get a crossing shot. The rabbit was put up, and I, taking a very deliberate aim, had the intense satisfaction of seeing him double up just as he reached the fence! What a moment! No 'Royal' killed at 140 yards could have afforded more delight than did that wretched little bunny.

Of course, previously to this, I had fired at a mark and at sitting objects, in order to get into the way of handling the gun, aiming and so forth.

It is of the first and greatest importance on beginning to shoot to learn to be careful, and the golden rule is, always to handle a gun as though it were loaded and cocked; the habit once acquired, it is just as easy to carry a gun safely as not.

Coolness and confidence are equally necessary--but practice alone will bring these. A beginner is apt to be flurried when the game gets up; she sees nothing else, thinks of nothing else but killing it, and takes no account of the beaters, guns, or dogs surrounding her. She points the gun at the bird or beast, and perchance (horrid thought!) follows it all round the compass with her finger on the trigger! Wherefore it is better she should not take the field with other guns (unless she wishes to make enemies of her best friends), until she has full command over the gun and can put it up easily and quickly. If the game gets up too near, she must wait till it has reached the proper distance, then raise the gun to her shoulder and fire at once. This is the only way to become a quick and steady shot.

Apropos of following; once when grouse-driving I was placed in a butt between two other guns, both of them strangers to me. They looked very much askance at me, and I fancy one of them thanked his stars he'd insured his life the week before! The one in the left hand butt at once moved both his "guards" on to the side of the butt next me. Soon three birds, the forerunners of the army to follow, came over between my right-hand neighbour and me, two of them making straight for his butt. To my surprise he did not fire. The third bird I hit with my first barrel, and seeing as it passed me that it had a leg down, I turned round and killed it going away from me with the left barrel. After the drive was over I asked him why he hadn't shot. "To tell you the truth," he said, "I was watching you. I was a little anxious to see if you would follow that bird, but after that, I saw you were all right!" My left-hand warrior confessed, later on, that he had been peppered by the gun on the other side of him! Whereat I chuckled!

As to the gun used, everybody must please themselves. I shoot with a 20-bore, the left barrel slightly choked, weight 5 lbs., and loaded with 2-1/4 drachms black powder, 3/4 oz. No. 6 shot. For covert shooting, E. C. or Schulze is better, it is quicker up to the game and almost smokeless.

A 16-bore makes killing easier, but the extra weight, at the end of a long day, counterbalances this advantage. I shot with a 28-bore belonging to a friend one day last winter, and was perfectly astonished at the way and the distance it killed, but you have to be very dead on to make good practice with so small a bore. A gun to fit you should come up to the shoulder quite easily, and, without any adjusting, you must bring the sight straight on to the object. If you see all down the barrel, the stock is too straight, if, on the contrary, you see nothing but the breech, it is too much bent and you will shoot under everything. But I would advise the beginner to go to the "Worth" of London gunmakers (Mr Purdey), put herself in his hands, and, like the sartorial genius of Paris, he will turn her out fitted to perfection. An indiarubber heel-plate is sometimes a wise precaution, to avoid a bruised shoulder and arm, which if you happen to be going to a ball, does not perhaps add to your beauty!

The left-hand should be held well forward. This gives much more power over the gun, it also looks much better. With regard to the position of the feet, it is well to recollect that elegance is compatible with ease!

It is a matter of some difficulty, at first, to judge distance correctly. The novice generally begins by blowing her game to bits, to make sure of killing it, I suppose, though in reality this makes it far harder. The other extreme, firing very long shots, is equally reprehensible, as nine times out of ten the game goes away wounded, even when occasionally it is dropped by a fluke. Any distance between twenty and forty yards is legitimate, though the latter is rather far for a hare going away from you.

Never hand the gun cocked to an attendant, and always unload when getting over a fence, and on putting the gun down for luncheon.

Now for a few words on aiming; but I must here protest that this does not profess to be a shooting "Bradshaw," but merely, as it were, an A B C guide!

For a beginner, no doubt the easiest way, in the case of any ordinary crossing shot, is to put up the gun on the object, then fling it forward as far in front as is thought fit, and fire, but, after a time, I think this kind of double action will no longer be found necessary. The gun will be put up at once in front of the game, the eye taking in by instinct and practice the line of the object, and experience telling how far in front of the game to hold the gun. This is certainly true with regard to ground game. Quite high-class aiming is to put the gun up a little before the head of the object, and swing the gun forward with the bird, pulling the trigger without stopping the gun. This is beyond doubt the best and most correct method, but not easy to accomplish.

I take it for granted that you shoot with both eyes open.

It is impossible to lay down a rule how far in front to hold the gun for a crossing shot. It depends upon the pace the bird is going, and its distance from you, but, roughly speaking, for an ordinary shot at twenty-five yards, the object's own length in front may be enough (but I write this with some diffidence). For a driven bird or high pheasant, my experience is, you can't get too far ahead! For a rabbit or hare going away from you aim at the back of its head; coming towards you, at its chest.

One of the greatest charms of shooting is its "infinite variety." Let us take for example, to begin with, a day's covert shooting.

The waggonette with its pair of matched bays (of course we have the best of everything--on paper) stands at the door. You pack yourselves in, with a goodly amount of rugs and furs, and away you go, ten miles an hour, through the park. There has been a sharp frost, the cobwebs are all glistening in the sun, and the road rings under the horses' feet in a manner ominous to the lover of the chase proper, but music in the ears of the shooting-man. The leaves are mostly off the trees, but here and there some few remaining ones shiver gently to the ground; the bracken is brown and withered, and rustles crisply as the deer brush through it, startled at the sight of the carriage. The wind is keen and biting, but you turn up your fur collar and defy "rude Boreas."

Arrived at the starting point you take, on your way to the first cover, two or three rough grasses. The rabbits having been previously ferreted and otherwise harried, have forsaken their strongholds, and have, so to speak, gone under canvas--they are dotted about all over the fields in seats. (It is astonishing how easy it is, until the eye becomes practised, to miss seeing a rabbit in a seat.) You form a line, a beater or two between each gun across the pasture. Before you have gone ten yards, a rabbit jumps up from underneath a beater's foot, and makes tracks for the nearest hedgerow or plantation, only, however, to fall a victim to the right-hand gun. The report alarms another, who, without delay, seeks to follow in the steps of his predecessor, but a charge of No. 5 interferes with his scheme, and he also succumbs to fate.

Soon the fun becomes "fast and furious," four or five rabbits are on foot together, necessitating quick loading and steady shooting. Here one breaks back through the line, and comes past you full tilt. You take a rapid look round to see that no unlucky beater lurks in the rear picking up the wounded--bang--ah! you didn't allow for the oblique line of bunny's course, and were half a foot behind him. The second barrel, however, stretches him a corpse on the field of battle.

At the end of the pasture runs a narrow strip of plantation. Here the shooting is more difficult. The brambles are very thick; you have to take snap-shots as the rabbits bounce from one thicket to another. You must fire where you think he'll be (not where he is), but even this manoeuvre is not always successful, as that old man who has been acting as stop at the end of the strip will tell you. "Nobbut eleven!" says he, "there's bin fortty shots fired! Ah coonted 'em!" Conscience-striken, you look at one another, and positively tremble before the scorn depicted in that old man's eye.

Then comes a small outlying covert. Two guns placed back to back command the end--the rest go with the beaters. A wood-pigeon is the first to make a move, which it does with a tremendous bustle and fuss; it affords a pretty shot, coming straight overhead, and falls with a "plop" behind you. Next to take alarm is an old hare. She scampers through the brushwood, staring behind her, and makes for her usual exit--a hole in the hedge, little knowing, poor thing, that she is galloping straight into the jaws of death, for your neighbour's unerring weapon promptly does its duty.

Then, maybe there arises a wild shout, a discordant "Tally-ho!" followed by sundry yells of all shades, and a banging great fox breaks away across the stubble, disappearing in the fence only to emerge again in the pasture. I think a fox one of the most beautifully-proportioned animals there is. He is built on such racing lines! with those long galloping quarters, that deep chest, and muscular neck. Look at him as he steals away over the grass without an effort; he doesn't appear to be going any pace at all, and yet in a moment he is out of sight! No hurry, my friend! You may take it easy to-day, but in a very short time you'll dance to another and a quicker tune played by 17-1/2 couple of the "best hounds in England!"

Meanwhile, four rabbits have taken advantage of your soliloquy to make good their escape. You fire a snap-shot at one as he bobs into the fence. "Mark over," and a pheasant whirrs over the top of the wood. You hastily cram a cartridge into your gun, raise it and pull, only to find that you've forgotten to cock the right barrel; you change on to the left trigger, but this has put you "off," the pheasant goes scathless, and is handsomely knocked down by your companion-in-arms. Perhaps this is an argument in favour of a hammerless gun!

On reaching the big covert the aspect of things is changed. The guns are placed at intervals down the rides, and the beaters go to the far end to bring it up towards you. It is always well to let the guns on either side of you, know your whereabouts, both for your own sake and theirs. Only let us hope you won't meet with the treatment that a friend of ours received. He was placed next to a very deaf old gentleman. Aware that he could not make him hear by calling, or (which is much preferable) by whistling, he took out his handkerchief and waved it to attract his attention. The old gentleman caught sight of it, put up his gun and took a steady and deliberate aim at it! You can easily imagine how our friend ducked and bobbed, and threw himself prone on the grass round the corner!

After a pause a distant shot is heard, then another, and soon you hear the tap tap of the beaters, and "Rabbit up," "Mark over," "Hare to the right," may be continually heard, unless, as in some places, silence is enjoined on the beaters. "Mark cock" is, however, everywhere an exception to this rule, and at the magic words, every gun is on the alert! I never understand why a woodcock should be productive of such wild excitement and reckless shooting as it generally is! The bird flits through the trees a little above the height of a man's head, looking as easy to kill as an owl, but it is a gay deceiver, for barrel after barrel may discharge its deadly contents at it, and still that brown bird flits on as before, turning up and down as it goes. Of course (on paper) you are the one to kill it, when you are loaded with congratulations--their very weight testifying how unexpected was the feat. Rather a doubtful compliment! Half the wood being shot, the guns move round to the outside. What has hitherto been done, has been chiefly a means to an end. The pheasants have been driven with the object of getting them into this particular corner. Possibly the wood stands on the slope of a hill; this gives the best shooting, as the birds fly over the valley affording high and difficult shots, especially if coming down-wind. I think there is nothing prettier than to see real high birds well killed. They fall like stones, with heads doubled up--not waving down, wings and legs out-stretched like the arms of a semaphore!

"Thick and fast they come at last, And more, and more, and more."

But do not let this tempt you into firing too quick. Pick your bird and kill it, though I grant you this is not an easy thing to do. Many men seem quite to lose their head at a hot corner. They fire almost at random, though, in the case of a few birds coming, they will scarcely miss a shot.

By this time it is growing dusk. The December afternoon is closing in. There is a mist rising from the river, the air feels damp and chill, and your thoughts turn to a bright fire, a tea-gown, and those delicious two hours before dinner.

To my mind, grouse-shooting is the cream of sport. To begin with, Scotland itself has a charm which no other country possesses. Then it is such nice clean walking! However much you may curtail your skirt, mud will stick to it, but on the heather there is nothing to handicap you--you are almost on a level with MAN!