WARWICK WOODLANDS. 181 



air. The whole of Tom's concentrated charge had strucjc 

 the bird endwise, as it flew from him; and, except the 

 extreme tips of his wings and one foot, no part of him 

 could be found. 



"The devil !" cried Harry, "that is too bad !" 

 "Never mind," said the Commodore, "Frank will man- 

 age him." 



As he spoke a second bird got up, and crossed Forester 

 in the same manner. Draw doing precisely as he had 

 done before; but, this time, missing the quail clear, whicn 

 Forester turned over. 



"Load quick! and step up to that fellow. He will run, 

 I think!" said Archer. 



"Ay! ay!" responded Frank, and, having rammed down 

 his charge like lightning, moved forward, before he had 

 put the cap on the barrel he had fired. 



Just as he took the cap out of his pocket between his 

 finger and thumb, a second quail rose. As cool and self- 

 possessed as it is possible to conceive, Frank cocked the 

 left hand barrel with his little finger, still holding the cap 

 between his forefinger and thumb, and actually contrived 

 to bring up the gun, some how or other,* and to kill the 

 bird, pulling the trigger with his middle finger. 



At the report a third quail sprang, close under his 

 feet; and, still unshaken, he capped the right hand barrel, 

 fired, and the bird towered! 



"Mark ! mark ! Tom — ma-ark Timothy !" shouted Harry 

 and A in a breath. 



"That bird is as dead as Hannibal now !" added Archer, 

 as, having spun up three hundred feet into the air, and 

 flown twice as many hundred yards, it turned over, and 

 fell plumb, like a stone, through the clear atmosphere. 



"Ayse gotten that chap marked doon raight, ayse war- 

 rant un !" shouted Timothy from the hill side, where with 

 some trouble, he was holding in the obstreperous spaniels. 

 "He's doon in a roight laine atwixt 't muckle gray stean 

 and yon hoigh ashen tree." 



"Did you ever see such admirable shooting, though?" 



•If I had not seen the whole of this scene with my eyes, and bad 

 I not witnesses of the fact, I would scarce dare to relate it. From 

 the cutting the first bird to atoms, all is strictly true. 



