WARWICK WOODLANDS. 81 



Well, down we went. The spaniels quickly retrieved his 

 dead birds, and flushed some fifteen more, of which we gave a 

 clean account Harry making up for lost time by killing six 

 cock, right and left, almost before they topped the bushes 

 seven more fell to me, but single birds all of them and but 

 one brace to Tom, who now began to wax indignant; for Archer, 

 as I saw, for fun's sake, was making it a point to cut down every 

 bird that rose to him, before he could get up his gun ; and then 

 laughed at him for being fat and slow. But the laugh was on 

 Tom's side before long for while we were yet in the valley, the 

 report of a gun came faintly down the wind from beyond the 

 hill, and as we all looked out attentively, a grouse skimmed 

 the brow, flying before the wind at a tremendous pace, and 

 skated across the valley without stooping from his altitude. I 

 stood the first, and fired, a yard at least ahead of him on he 

 went, unharmed and undaunted ; bang went my second barrel 

 still on he went, the faster, as it seemed, for the weak insult. 



Harry came next, and he too fired twice, and tell it not in 

 Gath missed twice ! " Now, Fat-Guts !" shouted Archer, not 

 altogether in his most amiable or pleasing tones ; and sure 

 enough up went the old man's piece roundly it echoed with 

 its mighty charge a cloud of feathers drifted away in a long 

 line from the slaughtered victim which fell not direct, so rapid 

 was its previous flight, but darted onward in a long declining 

 tangent, and struck the rocky soil with a thud clearly audible 

 where we stood, full a hundred yards from the spot where it 

 fell. 



He bagged, amid Tom's mighty exultation, forward again we 

 went and in a short half hour got into the remainder of the 

 pack which we had flushed before, in some low tangled thorn 

 cover, among which they lay well, and we made havoc of them. 

 And here the oddest accident I ever witnessed in the field took 

 place so odd, that I. am half ashamed to write to it but 

 where's the odds, for it is true. 



A fine cock bird was flushed close at Tom's feet, and went 

 off to the left, Harry and I both standing to the right ; he blazed 

 away, and at the shot the bird sprung up six or eight feet into 

 the air, with a sharp staggering flutter. " Killed dead !'' cried 

 I; " well done again, Fat Tom." But to my great surprise the 

 grouse gathered wing, and flew on, feebly at first, and dizzily, 

 but gaining strength more and more as he went on the farther. 

 At the last, after a long flight, he treed in a tall leaflless pine. 



