A SHOT IN THE MOUTH 309 



the large piece of water, or sort of mill-lake that there is there, 

 could be made an excellent decoy for wild-fowl for the gun. I 

 shall never forget a day's pheasant-shooting at Prestwood on a 

 beat wherein we had to shoot on small hills, on either side low 

 places or valleys — a species of ground which always requires 

 great care from the shooter, or he may hit his friend on the 

 opposite side. Known as a safe hand with a gun, I was selected 

 by my good friend to walk the dangerous line, but as luck would 

 have it an accident did occur. Mr. Henry Foley was attended 

 on that day by a little boy, the son of a labourer, to pick up and 

 carry his game, when on the rise of a pheasant above as well as 

 out of his line, I killed the pheasant, and at the same time cut 

 off a young tree as thick as my arm, which had the effect of 

 scattering the shot, some of them in oblique directions. My 

 surprise was great, when I heard the cry of Mr. Henry Foley's 

 boy at his heels, and saw him tumble backwards, exclaiming that 

 he was a dead man, or something very like it. I could not cross 

 the deep naiTOw valley just there, but I saw Mr. Foley iiui up, 

 and with his son stand over and gaze on the boy. When I 

 arrived, the boy's mouth was full of blood, he lay on his back, 

 his hand a little raised towards his face, speechless, and making 

 the most fearful contoi-tions of countenance, his eyes steadily 

 fixed on Mr. Foley's spectacles, the wearer of which had 

 questioned him in vain. I could not make it out, there was an 

 odd collected look about the boy which did not portend either 

 pain or the approach of death, and yet he lay still in apparent 

 convulsions of feature. A horrible pause was the consequence, 

 when suddenly the finger and thumb of the raised and pausing 

 hand went quickly to the bloody lips, and going in precisely as 

 Jack Horner's digits did when he pulled out the plum, the hand 

 returned towards the face of the anxious gazers, backed by the 

 boy's grinningly proud exclamation of " Here a is," and held up 

 to us, spectacles and all, a shot. The fact was, one shot had cut 

 the lip of the boy, and stuck tightly between his teeth; the 

 evolutions of his tongue and semblance of mastication arose in 

 an endeavour to extract his enemy, causing him to lie speech- 



