There is in sport, as in Society, a class of men who aspire
perpetually towards something as perpetually elusive, which appears
to them, rightly or wrongly, to be higher and nobler than their actual
selves. But whereas a man may be of and in Society, without effort, by
the mere accident of birth or wealth, in sport, properly understood,
achievement of some kind is necessary before admission can be had
to the sacred circle of the elect. What the snob is to Society, the
Spurious Sportsman is to sport; and thus where the former seeks
to persuade the world that he is familiar with the manners, and
accustomed to the intimate friendship of the great and highly placed,
the latter will hold himself out as one who, in every branch of sport
has achieved many notable feats on innumerable occasions.
Such a man, of course, is not without knowledge on the matters
of which he speaks. He has probably hunted several times without
pleasure, or fished or shot here and there without success. But upon
these slender foundations he could not rear the stupendous fabric
of his deeds unless he had read much, and listened carefully to
the narrations of others. By the aid of a lively and unscrupulous
imagination, he gradually transmutes their experiences into his own.
What he has read becomes, in the end, what he has done, and thus, in
time, the Spurious Sportsman is sent forth into the world equipped
in a dazzling armour of sporting mendacity. And yet mendacity is,
perhaps, too harsh a word; for it is of the essence of true falsehood
that it should hope to be believed, in order that it may deceive. But,
in the Spurious Sportsman's ventures into the marvellous, there is
generally something that gives ground for the exercise of charity,
and the appalled listener may hope that even the narrator is not
so thoroughly convinced of the reality of his exploits as he would,
apparently, desire others to be. And there is this also to be said
in excuse, that sport, which calls for the exercise of some of the
noblest attributes of man's nature, not infrequently leads him into
mean traps and pitfalls. For there are few men who can aver, with
perfect accuracy, that they have never added a foot or two to their
longest shot, or to the highest jump of their favourite horse, and
have never, in short, exaggerated a difficulty in order to increase
the triumph of overcoming it. But the modesty that confines most men
within reasonable limits of untruthfulness has no restraining power
over the Spurious Sportsman, to whom somewhat, therefore, may be
forgiven for the sake of the warning he affords.
He is, as a rule, a dweller in London, for it is there that he finds
the largest stock of credulity and tolerance. To walk with him in the
streets, or to travel with him in a train, is to receive for nothing
a liberal education in sport. No man has ever shot a greater number
of rocketing pheasants with a more unerring accuracy than he has--in
Pall Mall, St. James's Street, or Piccadilly. He will point out to you
the exact spot where he would post himself if the birds were being
driven from St. James's Square over the Junior Carlton Club. He will
then expatiate learnedly on angle, and swing, and line of flight,
and having raised his stick suddenly to his shoulder, by way of an
example, will knock off the hat of an inoffensive passer-by. This
incident will remind him of an adventure he had while shooting with
Lord X.--"A deuced good chap at bottom; a bit stiff at first, but the
best fellow going when you really know him"--through the well-known
coverts of his lordship's estate. When travelling safely in a
railway-carriage, he is the boldest cross-country rider in existence.
He will indicate to you a fence full of dangers, and having taught you
how it may best be cleared, will add, that it is nothing to one that
he jumped last season with the Quytchley. "My dear Sir," he will say,
"a man who was riding behind me was so astounded that he measured it
then and there with a tape he happened to have with him; Six foot of
post and rail as stiff as an iron-clad, and twenty foot of gravel-pit
beyond." He will also speak with infinite contempt of those who
"crane" or stick to the roads. It will sometimes happen to him to
get invited--really invited--to an actual country house where genuine
sport is carried on. Here, however, he will generally have brought
with him his wrong gun, or his "idiot of a man" will have packed the
wrong kind of cartridges, or his horse will have suddenly developed an
unaccountable trick of refusing, which results in a crushed hat and
a mud-stained coat for his rider. These little accidents will by no
means dash his spirits, or impair his volubility in the smoking-room,
where he may be heard conducting a dull discussion on sporting
records, or carrying on an animated controversy about powder, size of
shot or bore, choke, the proper kind of gaiter, or the right stamp of
horse for the country. Having shot with indifferent results on a very
big day through coverts, he will afterwards aver that such sport is
very poor fun, and that what he really cares about is a tramp over
heather or turnips, and a small bag at the end of the day; but if he
should ever be found on a grouse moor, or a partridge shooting, he
will sneer at the inferior quality of a sport which requires that a
man should exhaust himself with useless walking exercise before he
gets near his birds. "Covert-shooting is the game, my boy;" he will
say, "most difficult thing in the world when the pheasants are tall,
and the finest test of a real sportsman," and with that he will miss
his twentieth grouse, and call down imprecations on the dogs, the
light, the keeper, and his own companions.
The Spurious Sportsman is often an officer of the auxiliary forces.
He knows by heart every button of the British Army, talks much upon
questions of discipline, and has a more sharply defined and more
permanent mark of sunburn across his forehead than any regular
officer. He is also a great stickler for etiquette, and prefers to be
addressed as Major or Colonel, as the case may be. He bears his rank
upon his visiting-cards, and frequents a military Club. In the society
of other Spurious Sportsmen he is at his best and noblest. They gather
together at their resorts, each with the sincere conviction that
every other member of the little coterie is a confirmed humbug. Yet
they never fail to bring their store of goods, their anecdotes, their
experiences, their adventures, and their feats, to a market where
admiration and applause are paid down with a liberal hand; for though
all know their fellows to be impostors, they are content to sink
this knowledge in the desire to gain acceptance and credence for
themselves, and thus there never comes a whisper of doubt, hesitation,
or disbelief to mar the perfect harmony in which the Spurious
Sportsmen live amongst themselves. Yet, when they have separated,
they never fail to hold one another up to ridicule and contempt.
The Spurious Sportsman thus spends the greater part of his life in
building up a reputation out of nothing. As time goes on, he becomes
more and more anecdotically experienced, and, if possible, even less
actual. He will have lost his nerve for riding, and a sight which
gets daily weaker will have caused him to abandon even the pretence of
handling his gun; but he will seek a recompense by becoming a sporting
authority, and will pass a doddering old age in lamenting over
the decay of all those qualities which formerly made a sportsman a
sportsman, and a man a man.
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