To wander out into the brake, to creep from tree to tree so noiselessly that the woodpecker should not cease to tap--in that there is joy.

The consciousness that everything depends upon your own personal skill, and that you have no second resource if that fails you, gives the real zest to sport.
If the wheel did not knock a spark out quickly; if the priming had not been kept dry or the match not properly blown, or the cross-bow set exactly accurate, then the care of approach would be lost.

You must hold the gun steady, too, while the slow priming ignites the charge.
An imperfect weapon--yes; but the imperfect weapon would accord with the great oaks, the beech trees full of knot-holes, the mysterious thickets, the tall fern, the silence and the solitude.

The chase would become a real chase: not, as now, a foregone conclusion.

And there would be time for pondering and dreaming.
Let us be always out of doors among trees and grass, and rain and wind and sun.