We may safely conjecture that prehistoric men attended to their duties of obligation as well as to their pastoral affairs; and made a little profit at odd times in the form of tin which they bartered for salt, vases, and domestic utensils, with the Roman agents, very much as Brightly, who was their descendant, bartered his vases for rabbit-skins. But what about their pastimes?
History and tradition are alike silent on that point. They could not have been making love to their wives all their spare time. There must have been something to take the place of the beer-house, the chapel tea, the sing-songs, the rough-and-ready carnival. If tradition does not exactly speak it gives an echo. We listen to that echo, we put against it our knowledge of human nature, which does not change, and to that we add our experience of the desires, customs, and pastimes of the men who have passed into their places and live upon what was their ground; and then we get near the truth, possibly at the very heart of it. Their pastime was the shedding of blood. They fought together for the mere pleasure of inflicting wounds upon each other. They tortured inoffensive creatures because they were strong, the animals were weak, and the sight of suffering gave them a kind of pleasure. Since that barbaric age more than a thousand years of Christianity have done their civilising and humane work; have taught until there can be surely nothing left to teach; have practised until the virtues would have been pretty well worn out had they been practised less theoretically. And to-day one finds--
There were notices posted all over the place, upon walls and doors and gate-posts, little bills announcing a great pigeon- and rabbit-shoot, with money prizes for the three most successful competitors; the sport to conclude with a big feed at the inn at so much a head, drinks being extra. These shoots are among the most ordinary features of village life upon Dartmoor, and they are usually organised by the landlord of licensed premises, because at the conclusion of the sporting event the men gather together for the feed in a state of feverish excitement and soon drink themselves mad. That sort of thing means a handsome profit for the landlord. The men's passions are gratified, the victualler's pockets are filled, so every one is satisfied, and shoots do not lose in popularity year by year.