282 NARROW ESCAPE. 



the sportsman. Mr. Gore accordingly resolved to 

 secure a few of them for dinner, and put out his 

 gun for the purpose. The sudden arrest of the 

 birds' flight — the flash of the gun— the volume of 

 smoke — caught the eye as it closed at the explosion ; 

 — with some of us it might have been for ever ! 

 'Twas the afi^air of but a second. Death came to our 

 sides, as it were, and departed ere the report of the 

 gun had ceased to roll over the waters of the reach. 

 Something whizzed past my ear, deafening and 

 stupifving me for a moment — the next I saw my 

 much-valued friend Gore stretched at his length in 

 the bottom of the boat, and I perceived at a glance the 

 danger we had incurred and providentially escaped. 

 His fowling piece had burst in his hand, and flown 

 away in fragments, leaving only a small portion of 

 the barrel at my feet. How it happened that the 

 coxswain and myself were unhurt seemed a miracle. 

 I was on the right of Mr. Gore, in the stern-sheets 

 of the yawl, and the coxswain was a little on the 

 left, and over him, steering. Our preservation can 

 only be attributed to Him whose eye is on all his 

 creatures and who disposes of our lives as it seemeth 

 good in his sight. Without intending to be pre- 

 sumptuous, we may be permitted to believe that we 

 were spared partly on account of the service in 

 which we were eno;aoed— so beneficial to humanitv, 

 SO calculated to promote the spread of civilization, 

 which must ever be the harbinger of Christianity. 

 At any rate it is not, in my humble opinion, any 



