Random Shots from a Rifleman — Edition Insights

PAGE Family Pictures, with select Views of the Estate, fenced with distant Prospects 1

"No man can tether time or tide, The hour approaches Tam maun ride."

And he takes one side step and two front ones on the road to glory 11

An old one takes to his heels, leaving a young one in arms.--The dessert does not always follow the last coarse of--a goose.--Goes to the war, and ends in love 30

Shewing how generals may descend upon particulars with a cat-o'-nine tails. Some extra Tales added, Historical, Comical, and Warlike all 44

The paying of a French compliment, which will be repaid in a future chapter. A fierce attack upon hairs. A niece compliment, and lessons gratis to untaught sword-bearers 79

Reaping a Horse with a halter. Reaping golden Opinions out of a Dung-Hill, and reaping a good Story or two out of the next Room. A Dog-Hunt and Sheep's Heads prepared at the Expense of a Dollar each, and a Scotchman's Nose 94

"Blood and destruction shall be so in use, And dreadful objects so familiar, That mothers shall but smile when they behold Their infants quartered with the hands of war." 130

The persecution of the guardian of two angels. A Caçadore and his mounted followers. A chief of hussars in his trousers. A chief of rifles in his glory, and a sub of ditto with two screws in the neck 155

National Characters. Adventures of a pair of leather Breeches. Ditto of a pound of Beef. Shewing what the French General did not do, and a Prayer which he did not pray; with a few random Shots. 176

A bishop's gathering.--Volunteers for a soldier's love, with a portrait of the lover.--Burning a bivouac. Old invented thrashing machines and baking concerns.--A flying Padre taking a shot flying 219

Shewing how a volunteer may not be what Doctor Johnson made him.--A mayor's nest.--Cupping.--The Author's reasons for punishing the world with a book.--And some volunteers of the right sort 236

Very short, with a few anecdotes still shorter; but the principal actors thought the scene long enough 265

Shewing rough visitors receiving a rough reception. Some living and moving specimens thereof. Tailors not such fractions of humanity as is generally believed. Gentle visitors receiving a gentle reception, which ends by shewing that two shakes joined together sound more melodiously on the heart-strings than two hands which shake of their own accord 277

Specimens of target-practice, in which markers may become marked men.--A grave anecdote, shewing "how some men have honours thrust upon them." A line drawn between man and beast.--Lines drawn between regiments, and shewing how credit may not be gained by losing what they are made of.--Aristocratic.--Dedicatic.--Dissertation on advanced guards, and desertion of knapsacks, shewing that "the greater haste the worse speed" 299

Family Pictures, with select Views of the Estate, fenced with distant Prospects.

Every book has a beginning, and the beginning of every book is the undoubted spot on which the historian is bound to parade his hero. The novelist may therefore continue to envelope his man in a fog as long as he likes, but for myself I shall at once unfold to the world that I am my own hero; and though that same world hold my countrymen to be rich in wants, with the article of modesty among them, yet do I hope to maintain the character I have assumed, with as much propriety as can reasonably be expected of one labouring under such a national infirmity, for

"I am a native of that land, which Some poets' lips and painters' hands"

have pictured barren and treeless. But to shew that these are mere fancy sketches, I need only mention that as long as I remember anything, there grew a bonny brier and sundry gooseberry bushes in our kail-yard, and it was surrounded by a stately row of pines, rearing their long spinster waists and umbrella heads over the cabbages, as carefully as a hen does her wings over her brood of chickens, so that neither the sun nor moon, and but a very few favoured stars had the slightest chance of getting a peep therein, nor had anything therein a chance of getting a peep out, unless in the cabbages returning the sheep's eyes of their star-gazers; for, while the front was protected by a long range of house and offices, with no ingress or egress but through the hall-door, the same duty was performed on the other three sides by a thick quick-set hedge which was impervious to all but the sparrows, so that the wondrous wise man of Islington might there have scratched his eyes out and in again a dozen times without being much the wiser.