WARWICK WOODLANDS. 85 



expression of surprise; "did you, though? — that's prime 

 work — it takes a thorough workman to bag a double shot 

 upon October grouse. But come, we must get down to 

 Tom; hark how the old hound keeps bawling." 



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 b^ing 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 Oath — 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 re- 

 mainder 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 T 

 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 leff," Harry and I both standing to the 



