“ The Badminton book on Archery, with its valuable teaching, often stands me in good stead when I get into any of the innumerable tricks which beset the path of the archer, and which well nigh bring the beginner to despair of ever becoming a steady shot. How many beginners have I met who have had to learn by bitter experience that to shoot a good arrow is not so easy as appears at first sight, and that to make perhaps a very fine score of three hundred and odd, does not by any means prove that one has conquered all difficulties. ”

“ Merely to watch your opponent's self-possession, as she extricates the ball from the heaviest sand, without the least sign of force or irritability, will be a lesson worthy of taking to heart. To have made good progress in the game, and to be able to hold one's own with some of the longer handicap members, perhaps even to be able to give them a point or two besides a beating, has the effect of making most people rather proud and pleased with themselves. Then it is that a sound beating from some good player will do your game pounds of good and show you how much you still have to learn. ”

“ I may say at once that I have a decided preference for the rifle as opposed to the gun, though I should be the last to minimise the pleasures of pheasant and partridge shooting. I am not one of those women who prefer the excitement of a regular "battue" to the more sober joys of a quiet pot-hunt. To begin with, there is no doubt that a woman is a great bore at anything like an organised shooting party. It would do the intending lady-shot good to see the faces of the men on hearing that they are to have the honour of her company during the day. ”

“ To play a tight match in a championship, is generally a doubtful pleasure. The severe strain of knowing that every stroke should be soundly good, or at all events useful, the amount of care that must be taken over the shortest putt, the dogged determination that you will beat your opponent, or if you do not quite succeed in this, that you will only be beaten by the most narrow margin, and last but not least, the total obliviousness to the crowd that may be following the match ”

“ Part of the charm of hunting is the beauty of its surroundings. I know nothing prettier than the different scenes of a hunt. To watch the hounds put into covert, to stand at a corner and see down the ride the huntsman's red coat and all the hounds round him, among the brown leaves [Pg 15] on the ground and the dark trees in the background is simply a picture, and time after time in each hunting day such pictures appear, and delight the eye. ”

“ It is if possible even more exciting to fish in the dark than during the day. When you have it all to do by "feel," it is a weird sensation, to struggle with an invisible foe, the only outward signs of which are the showers of phosphorescent spray, as the tarpon leaps and falls again. Of course on a moonlight night you can see all that is going on, and the tarpon looks like a dream fish as the silvery light glitters on his gleaming sides. ”

“ The revival of trade, indeed, that marks the opening of golf links, falls little short of a species of colonizing, resuscitating as it does decayed towns and villages, in which the game has fanned the almost extinct embers of industry into a glowing flame. While the men find work on the course, the boys have employment as caddies, or the sharper ones get a berth in the club maker's shop, whilst the players who come and go every day in the year, cause the hearts of the local butchers, bakers, and grocers to rejoice. ”

“ One thing about Ireland—and when I say Ireland, I am thinking only of the county Meath, for I have never hunted with any other pack over there, barring one day in Kildare—is that a pony can get over it. It will creep about and jump like a cat, and cross the country as it never could in England. Then, too, people do not seem to hurt themselves so often when they fall over there, and that no doubt is because they ride slowly at their fences, but then how one misses the gates. ”

“ But away he goes again, taking out perhaps every foot of line on the reel, and again you reel up, working him hard. Slowly and by degrees his leaps become shorter and fainter, you work him nearer and nearer the boat till he lies exhausted on his side, but with one wary eye on the gaff, ready to slew round and make another dash for life and liberty. But you hold him tight. One skilful blow with the gaff, and another gallant fish has met his fate. ”

“ Vivid pictures of the hunting-field, the banks of the salmon river, the croquet lawn and the golf links, show the love of the nineteenth century maid and matron for the healthy out-door exercise, which has given to the younger generation a physique that would have been regarded with wondering awe, not unmixed with disapproval, by their gentle and delicate great-grandmothers. ”

“ Attending open meetings, and taking part in club matches, will do more for your nerves and be the means of your gaining greater experience than a hundred rounds on the quiet home course, with just those players around you to whose criticisms the ear has become so used, that they cease to make the slightest impression. At such big gatherings you can see for yourself the endless varieties of style, grip, stance, and a dozen other details which will go more towards teaching you how you should or should not do this, or do that, than many lessons and many chapters on the subject. ”

“ For as nothing is certain in life, still less is it so in golf! A topped drive, or a short putt, and the whole luck of the game may alter. Therefore the player who has perfect control over her nerves has a decided advantage over one who becomes flustered, and she will very often come in with a rush and flourish of trumpets at the last. When playing a tight match never risk going for the hole if a halved one will answer as well, for there is always the chance in going for it from some way off of placing the ball out of holeing distance for the next shot, and so losing the hole altogether. ”

“ Yet how few people seem to hunt with their heads. As long as they can gallop and jump in sight of someone else's coat tails, there are many who seem to be quite content, and will assure you they enjoy their hunting immensely.
But this is not the real way.
To use your own judgment, to have a quick eye to hounds, and as they turn and swing to cut off the corners, to save your horse by choosing the weak places in the fences and the best going in the fields, this is the science of riding to hounds. Yet very few know how to do it, and fewer still have the gift of being able to make a horse gallop. ”

“ There are certain points which all shooters of driven grouse should bear in mind, one being that the eyes should be, so to speak, working in front of the gun, which should come to the shoulder with one movement, and the trigger be pulled at once. It is this instinctive action in shooting which makes the constant practice, on which so much stress has been laid, so necessary. It cannot, so far as I know, be acquired in any other way, but if a woman has the perseverance and keenness necessary, she is likely to acquire it more quickly than a man. ”

“ It is pretty to see a really good man or woman riding to hounds. How they keep flitting along to one side of the pack, never seeming in a hurry, but always moving on, down the furrows and over the gaps, and those who try to catch them will find they are always in front and generally clean.
One great thing to learn, and especially I think for a woman, is to go quietly and not to splash. One hates to see the women of a hunt always on the gallop, going from covert to covert across the fields. ”

“ Nevertheless, there are one or two places on my father's property where, with a steady old setter, I can generally find a brace of pheasants or more. A pheasant flushed in a hedgerow, is no doubt sometimes an easy shot when you are in practice, but it is good for beginners, as is everything that gives you confidence in yourself. When you shoot your first pheasant and he comes down stone-dead, you feel you really are a sportswoman, and a new confidence which brings success in its train, springs up in your heart. ”

“ Nothing is more fatal than a headstrong disposition, which I am convinced is often the result of bad treatment. "In for a penny, in for a pound," seems to be the reflection of a retriever, when looking back at his raging master and evidently understanding that he will be beaten in any case, he goes off for an entrancing chase after a hare, thus perhaps spoiling half a day's sport for you. And vice once contracted is most difficult to eradicate, indeed it was my bitter experience on this point which led me to undertake the education of my retrievers myself. ”

“ Although I am of course keen to breed a Peterborough winner, still my great ambition is to own a pack that will hunt and drive. I am not in favour of the slow, sure and persevering type of hound, for though these may hunt and constantly kill their hare, they will by giving her time, allow her to run round and round in the country she knows, instead of driving her out of her beaten track. I like hounds to get away on the back of their quarry and if they drive her into a strange country she will be almost certain to go straight. ”

“ Shooting is a sport which requires neatness, accuracy, and the most persevering practice. Its real pleasure lies in successful shots rather than in the number of slain. Of course this does not mean that you should chance doubtful shots, but rather that you should gain the skill enabling you to kill a driven grouse, or partridge, or rabbit crossing a ride, or a high-flying pheasant, neatly, instantaneously, and with scarcely the loss of a feather or fluff of fur. ”

“ It looks so easy, ridiculously easy, and as if it was quite impossible not to hit that little white globe, perched on its sand tee, but in reality, till the eye and the hand have been trained to do so, it is one of the most difficult tasks in life, and a process tending to many abusive speeches! The experience naturally produces a spirit of dogged determination not to be beaten, wherein lie the first seeds of interest, and the desire for improvement. ”

“ For in golf the laws of imitation are very subtle, and nothing is more common than to play down to another person's standard. However trying it may be, therefore, to have every shot watched, whether it is a long raking drive, a foozled iron, or some twelve inch putt that lips the hole instead of going down, do your best to be steady, even if brilliancy be out of the question, for consistency can never be very hardly criticised, even when seriously put in the shade by a superior display of knowledge. ”

“ Quietness and trust in her hounds are the two qualities without which no woman can hunt a pack successfully. This brings me to the subject of the hounds themselves, and though it may seem rather like putting the cart before the horse, to speak of hunting them first, yet it is certain that no one will find the hounds of much use until she knows how to handle them. The first point of course to decide is the kind of hounds you mean to have, whether dwarf foxhounds, stud-book harriers, or the old pure harrier. ”

“ The reign of Queen Anne on the other hand, although the Sovereign herself and the members of her court were lovers of the chase, seems to have had a distinctly depressing effect on the independent position of women. It was not till the present century, when our beloved Queen by her conduct on the throne, and in her private life, gave such a stimulus to the position of her sex, that women came forward to take their share in the sports, as well as in the more serious duties of our national life, in a way that was new in the world's history. ”

“ In these few words on Shooting for Women, I must begin by saying that as this is my first attempt at writing, I hope any faults I may make will be lightly treated. It is only within the last few years that the idea of a woman being able to see a gun without screaming, much less fire one off, has even been thought of, but now I venture to say that there are many women who are just as good shots with both gun and rifle as men, and perhaps some better. ”

“ If one were to play golf for ever, yet would the feeling remain that there are many things to be mastered.
One of the most trying times for the nerves, and in fact for your play all round is when at some big open meeting, or perhaps even in the championship, you find yourself drawn to play with or against a celebrity. Some of the on-lookers may, and probably will, elect to follow you round just to see your famous partner perform, as well as to criticise both players. ”

“ A man can squeeze a half-hearted one over a fence, where a woman would be simply powerless to do anything, and I think the worst sort of a horse a woman can ride is a refuser. It is bad for her in every way, for body, temper, and nerve. One can forgive a horse everything if he will but try, but a sulky or funking brute, who grows more and more slack as he nears each fence until he collapses at the brink, is too high a trial, especially when the fight which must come generally ends in rearing, which is of all things most dangerous for a woman. ”

“ There are very strict rules of etiquette to be observed in shooting, as in hunting or any other sport, and nobody is more hated and feared than a jealous shot. These are indeed a source of danger to everyone, as they are always so anxious to add another bird to their score that they never give any thought to their neighbours, or think of other people. For a person, whether a man or woman, who is beginning to shoot, the best thing is to go out with some experienced shot or keeper who will thoroughly explain the art of shooting, and show how to load and unload a gun and how to hold it. ”