AN UNLUCKY COMPANION. 293 



entire season. He was a pretty shot, and an excellent fellow ; 

 but I never entered a cover with him that I was not certain to 

 be struck before we returned home. Every precaution to 

 evade his shot was useless. If in a copse of a mile long there 

 was a solitary opening to admit its passage, he was opposite it 

 to a certainty ; and my first intimation that such an alley did 

 exist, would be a fall of withered leaves from the bushes 

 above, and most likely a few grains lodging in my hat or 

 jacket. If I moved to avoid a chance of accident, something 

 induced him to make a corresponding change ; and at last I 

 became so nervous, that I obliged him momently to call out, 

 that I might ascertain our relative positions, and guard, if 

 possible, against injury. 



We once, during a severe frost, shot the beautiful islands 

 in the lake of Castle bar, which belong to the Marquis of 

 Sligo. There were an immense number of cocks in cover, and 

 we had been particularly successful ; but the wonder was, I 

 had that day escaped unwounded, and my prayer to " keep 

 lead out of me" had been heard. On our return, my friend 

 was pluming himself on this result. " It was foolish," he 

 said, " to reckon him unlucky. To be sure, some shots of 

 his had been unfortunate, but such would ever be the case." 

 We had now left off shooting, and were within a few fields of 

 the barracks, when a jack snipe sprang from a drain on the 

 road- side, and flying to the top of the field, pitched in the 

 upper ditch. I followed it merely to discharge my barrels 

 it sprang, and the report of my gun disturbed a hare in the 

 bottom of the field ; she moved, and my companion instantly 

 discharged both barrels. From the hardness of the surface, 

 the shot rose ; a shower fell upon the protected parts of my 

 person, while two struck me in the lip, and cut me deeply. 

 I was more than one hundred yards from him, yet from the 

 hard frost, the ricochet of the shot came as sharply upon me, 

 as if I had been within point-blank distance. After that inci- 

 dent, need I add ? much as I loved him, I never pulled a 

 trigger in his company again. 



