162 WARWICK WOODLANDS. 



with high graceful bounds, tossing his antlered head aloft, 

 as if already safe, and little hurt, if anything, by Jem 

 Lyn's boasted shot of the last evening. The gray stood 

 motionless, trembling, however, palpably, in every limb, 

 with eagerness — his ears laid flat upon his neck, and 

 cowering a little, as if he feared the shot, which it 

 would seem his instinct told him to expect. Harry had 

 dropped his reins once more, and levelled his unerring 

 rifle — yet for a moment's space he paused, waiting for 



A to fire; there was no hurry for himself, nay, a few 



seconds more wotdd give him a yet fairer shot, for the 

 buck now was running partially toward him, so that a 

 moment more would place him broadside on, and within 

 twenty paces. 



"Bang!" came the full and round report of A 's 



large shot-gun, fired before the beast was fifteen yards 

 away from him. He had aimed at the head, as he was 

 forced to do, lest he should spoil the haunches, for he 

 was running now directly from him — and had the buck 

 been fifty paces off he would have killed him dead, lodging 

 his whole charge, or the best part of it, in the junction of 

 the neck and skull — but as it was, the cartridge — the 

 green cartridge — had not yet spread at all; nor had one 

 buckshot left the case! Whistling like a single ball, as 

 it passed Harry's front eight or nine yards off, it drove, 

 as his quick eye discovered, clean through the stag's right 

 ear, almost dissevering it, and making the animal bound 

 six feet off the green sward. 



Just as he touched the earth again, alighting from his 

 mighty spring, with an aim sure and steady, and a cool 

 practised finger, the marksman drew his trigger, and, 

 quick, as light, the piece — well loaded, as its dry crack 

 announced — discharged its ponderous missile! But, bad 

 luck on it, even at that very instant, just in the point of 

 time wherein the charge was ignited, eighteen or twenty 

 quail, flushed by the hubbub of the hounds, rose with a 

 loud and startling whirr, on every side of the gray horse, 

 \xnder his belly and about his ears, so close as almost to 

 brush him with their wings — he bolted and reared up — ^yet 

 even at that disadvantage the practised rifleman missed 

 not his aim entirely, though he erred somewhat, and the 

 wound in consequence was not quite deadly. 



