Make a sauce by melting a lump of butter with two mustard-spoonfuls of mustard, two table-spoonfuls of mushroom catsup, and one of sauce, mango sauce being the best; add the juice of half a lemon, one wine glass of sherry, and one of claret. Heat the mixture as hot as possible, and rub in two table-spoonfuls of currant jelly till the whole is perfectly smooth; then take the venison cut in steaks, and previously either roasted or broiled, and warm it thoroughly in the sauce to which the juice of the meat, if any, has been added. Cold meat is redeemed by this process.
And now my friends, if you are ever fortunate enough to have the Superior Fishing I have described, or if the author’s good-will may avail even better, and, after the delight and triumph of success, the well-earned prize is brought up properly upon the table, either in the rough woods or the elegant dining-room, and is flanked by such appropriate dishes as circumstances permit, and laid to rest in the best liquor that can be obtained; then your mind, filled with present complacency, must travel back over these pages, and forgetting the faults and pardoning the errors, acknowledge that if in them you have not found an instructor, you have found a brother sportsman; and, for the sake of the bond that binds all members of the gentle craft together, if you cannot conscientiously praise the manner or the matter of these pages, you will utter no word to discourage an effort that, while pointing out and dwelling upon the beauties of nature in our wonderful country, and the pure attractions it offers to the lovers of our art, has principally been to maintain the healthy and ennobling nature of field-sports; to urge the protection, at proper seasons, of the game that still lingers in our woods and waters; and to elevate to a proud standard of honorable, generous, and merciful rivalry the sportsmanship of America.
“There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles
of books no less than in the faces of
men, by which a skilful observer
will know as well what to expect
from the one as the
other.”—Butler.