Warwick Woodlands: Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago

by Henry William Herbert

"I'll tell you what, Master A---," said Archer as he stood with his back to the fire, mixing some rum with sugar and cold water, previous to pouring the hot milk into it--"You'll be so cold in that light jacket on the stand this morning, that you'll never be able to hold your gun true, if you get a shot. It froze quite hard last night, and there's some wind, too, this morning."

"That's very true," replied the Commodore, "but devil a thing have I got else to wear, unless I put on my great coat, and that's too much the other way--too big and clumsy altogether. I shall do well enough, I dare say; and after all, my drilling jacket is not much thinner than your fustian."

"No," said Harry, "but you don't fancy that I'm going out in this, do you? No! no! I'm too old a hand for that sort of thing--I know that to shoot well, a man must be comfortable, and I mean to be so. Why, man, I shall put on my Canadian hunting shirt over this,"--and with the word he slipped a loose frock, shaped much like a wagoner's smock, or a Flemish blouse, over his head, with large full sleeves, reaching almost to his knees, and belted round his waist, by a broad worsted sash. This excellent garment was composed of a thick coarse homespun woollen, bottle-green in color, with a fringe and bindings of dingy red, to match the sash about his waist. From the sash was suspended an otter skin pouch, containing bullets and patches, nipple wrench and turn-screw, a bit of dry tow, an oiled rag, and all the indispensables for rifle cleaning; while into it were thrust two knives--one a broad two-edged implement, with a stout buck-horn haft, and a blade of at least twelve inches--the other a much smaller weapon, not being, hilt and all, half the length of the other's blade, but very strong, sharp as a razor, and of surpassing temper. While he was fitting all these in their proper places, and slinging under his left arm a small buffalo horn of powder, he continued talking:

"Now," he said, "if you take my advice, you'll go into my room, and there, hanging against the wall, you'll find my winter shooting jacket, I had it made last year when I went up to Maine, of pilot cloth, lined throughout with flannel. It will fit you just as well as your own, for we're pretty much of a size. Frank, there, will wear his old monkey jacket, the skirts of which he razeed last winter for the very purpose. Ah, here is Brower--just run up, Brower, and bring down my shooting jacket off the wall from behind the door--look sharp, will you! Now, then, I shall load, and I advise you both to do likewise; for it's bad work doing that same with cold fingers."

Thus saying, he walked to the corner, and brought out his rifle, a short heavy double barrel, with two grooves only, carrying a bitted ball of twelve to the pound, quite plain but exquisitely finished. Before proceeding, however, to load, he tried the passage of the nipple with a fine needle--three or four of which, thrust into a cork, and headed with sealing wax, formed a portion of the contents of his pouch--brushed the cone, and the inside of the hammer, carefully, and wiped them, to conclude, with a small piece of clean white kid--then measuring his powder out exactly, into a little charger, screwed to the end of his ramrod, he inverted the piece, and introduced the rod upward till the cup reached the chamber; when, righting the gun, he withdrew it, leaving the powder all lodged safely at the breech, without the loss of a single grain in the groovings. Next, he chose out a piece of leather, the finest grained kid, without a seam or wrinkle, slightly greased with the best watch-maker's oil--selected a ball perfectly round and true--laid the patch upon the muzzle, and placing the bullet exactly in the centre over the bore, buried it with a single rap of a small lignum vita mallet, which hung from his button-hole; and then, with but a trifling effort, drove it home by one steady thrust of the stout copper-headed charging rod. This done, he again inspected the cone, and seeing that the powder was forced quite up into sight, picked out, with the same anxious scrutiny that had marked all of his proceedings, a copper cap, which he pronounced sure to go, applied it to the nipple, crushed it down firmly, with the hammer, which he then drew back to half-cock, and bolted. Then he set the piece down by the fireside, drained his hot jorum, and...

"That fellow will do his work, and no mistake," said he. "Now A--- here is my single gun"--handing to him, as he spoke, one of the handsomest Westley Richards a sportsman ever handled--"thirty-three inches, nine pounds and eleven gauge. Put in one-third above that charger, which is its usual load, and one of those green cartridges, and I'll be bound that it will execute at eighty paces; and that is more than Master Frank there can say for his Manton Rifle, at least if he loads it with bullets patched in that slovenly and most unsportsmanlike fashion."

"I should like to know what the deuce you mean by slovenly and unsportsmanlike," said Frank, pulling out of his breast pocket a couple of bullets, carefully sewed up in leather--"it is the best plan possible, and saves lots of time--you see I can just shove my balls in at once, without any bother of fitting patches."

"Yes," replied Harry, "and five to one the seam, which, however neatly it is drawn, must leave a slight ridge, will cross the direction of the grooving, and give the ball a counter movement; either destroying altogether the rotatory motion communicated by the rifling, or causing it to take a direction quite out of the true line; accordingly as the counteraction is conveyed near the breech, or near the muzzle of the piece."

"Will so trifling a cause produce so powerful an effect?" inquired the Commodore.

"The least variation, whether of concavity or convexity in the bullet, will do so unquestionably--and I cannot see why the same thing in a covering superinduced to the ball should not have the same effect. Even a hole in a pellet of shot, will cause it to leave the charge, and fly off at a tangent. I was once shooting in the fens of the Isle of Ely, and fired at a mallard sixty or sixty-five yards off, with double B shot, when to my great amazement a workman--digging peat at about the same distance from me with the bird, but at least ninety yards to the right of the mallard--roared out lustily that I had killed him. I saw that the drake was knocked over as dead as a stone, and consequently laughed at the fellow, and set it down as a cool trick to extort money, not uncommon among the fen men, as applied to members of the University. I had just finished loading, and my retriever had just brought in the dead bird, which was quite riddled, cut up evidently by the whole body of the charge--both the wings broken, one in three places, one leg almost dissevered, and several shots in the neck and body--when up came my friend, and sure enough he was hit--one pellet had struck him on the cheek bone, and was imbedded in the skin. Half a crown, and a lotion of whiskey--not applied to the part, but taken inwardly--soon proved a sovereign medicine, and picking out the shot with the point of a needle, I found a hole in it big enough to admit a pin's head, and about the twentieth part of an inch in depth. This I should think is proof enough for you--but, besides this, I have seen bullets in pistol-shooting play strange vagaries, glancing off from the target at all sorts of queer angles."