WARWICK WOODLANDS. 83 



Scarce had I reached the top, before, as I looked down 

 into the glen below me, a puff of white smoke, in9tantly 

 succeeded by a second, and the loutl full reports of both 

 his barrels from among- the green-leafed alders, showed 

 me that Tom had sprung game. The next second I heard 

 the sharp questing of the spuniel Dan, followed by Har- 

 ry's "Charge! — down Cha-ai*ge, you little thief — down to 

 cha-arge, will you !" 



But it was all in vain — for on he went furious and 

 fast, and the next moment the thick whirring of a grouse 

 reached my excited ears. Carefully, eagerly, I gazed out 

 to mark the wary bird; but the discharge of Harry's piece 

 assured me, as I thought, that further watch was need- 

 less; and stupidly enough I dropped the muzzle of my 

 gun. 



Just at the self -same point of time — "Mark ! mark, 

 Frank !" shouted Archer, "mark ! there are a brace of 

 them !" — and as he spoke, gliding with speed scarcely in- 

 ferior to a bullet's flight upon their balanced pinions, the 

 noble birds swept past me, so close that I could have 

 struck them with a riding whip. 



Awfully fluttered ,was I — I confess — but by a species of 

 involuntary and instinctive consideration I rallied in- 

 stantly, and became cool. The grouse had seen me, and 

 wheeled diverse ; one darting to the right, through a small 

 opening between a cedar bush and a tall hemlock — the 

 other skimming through the open oak woods a little to- 

 ward the left. 



At such a crisis thought comes in a second's space; 

 and I have often fancied that in times of emergency or 

 great surprise, a man deliberates more promptly, and 

 more prudently withal, than when he has full time to let 

 his second thought trench on his first and mar it. So 

 was it in this case with me. At half a glance I saw, that 

 if 1 meant to get both birds, the right-hand fugitive must 

 be the first, and that with all due speed: for but a few 

 yards further he would have gained a brake which would 



have laughed to scorn Lord Kennedy or Harry T r. 



Pitching my gun up to my shoulder, both barrels load- 

 ed with Eley's red wire cartridge No. 6, I gave him a snap 

 shot, and had the satisfaction of seeing him keeled well 

 over, not wing-tipped or leg-broken, but fairly riddled 

 by the concentrated charge of something within thirty 



