Recreations of Christopher North, Volume I

nor yet unfelt, at six paces, by hinder-end of playmate, scornfully yet fearfully exposed. But the shooter soon tires of such ineffectual trigger--and his soul, as well as his hair, is set on fire by that extraordinary compound--Gunpowder. He begins with burning off his eyebrows on the King's birthday; squibs and crackers follow, and all the pleasures of the pluff. But he soon longs to let off a gun--"and follows to the field some warlike lord"--in hopes of being allowed to discharge one of the double-barrels, after Ponto has made his last point, and the half-hidden chimneys of home are again seen smoking among the trees. This is his first practice in firearms, and from that hour he is--a Shooter.

Then there is in most rural parishes--and of rural parishes alone do we condescend to speak--a pistol, a horse one, with a bit of silver on the butt--perhaps one that originally served in the Scots Greys. It is bought, or borrowed, by the young shooter, who begins firing first at barn-doors, then at trees, an