Part 21 (2/2)
”Never mind,” said the Commodore, ”Frank will manage 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, which 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 c.o.c.ked 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 roight, ayse warrant 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 gray stean and yon hoigh ashen tree.”
”Did you ever see such admirable shooting, though?” asked A---, in a low voice. ”I did not know Forester shot like that.”
”Some times he does. When he's cool. He is not certain; that is his only fault. One day he is the coolest man I ever saw in a field, and the next the most impetuous; but when he is cool, he shoots splendidly. As you say, A---, I never saw anything better done in my life. It was the perfection of coolness and quickness combined.”
”I cannot conceive how it was done at all. How he brought up and fired that first barrel with a cap between his thumb and forefinger! Why, I could not fire a gun so, in cold blood!”
”Nor could he, probably. Deliberate prompt.i.tude is the thing! Well, Tom, what do you think of that? Wasn't that pretty shooting?”
”It was so, pretty shootin',” responded the fat man, quite delighted out of his crusty mood. ”I guess the darned little critter's got three barrels to his gun somehow; leastwise it seems to me, I swon, 'at he fired her off three times without loadin' I guess I'll quit tryin' to shoot agin Frank, to-day.”
”I told you so!” said Harry to the Commodore, with a low laugh, and then added aloud--”I think you may as well, Tom--for I don't believe the fellow will miss another bird to-day.”
And in truth, strange to say, it fell out, in reality, nearly as Archer had spoken in jest. The whole party shot exceedingly well. The four birds, which Tom and the Commodore had missed at the first start, were found again in an old ragwort field, and brought to bag; and of the twenty-three quail which Forester had marked down into the bog meadow, not one bird escaped, and of that bevy not one bird did Frank miss, killing twelve, all of them double shots, to his own share, and beating Archer in a canter.
But that sterling sportsman cared not a stiver; too many times by far had he had the field, too sure was he of doing the same many a time again, to dislike being beaten once. Besides this, he was always the least jealous shot in the world, for a very quick one; and, in this instance, he was perhaps better pleased to see his friend ”go in and win,” than he would have been to do the like himself.
Exactly at two o'clock, by A---'s repeater, the last bird was bagged; making twenty-seven quail, forty-nine snipe, two ruffed grouse, and one woodc.o.c.k, bagged in about five hours.
”So far, this is the very best day's sport I ever saw,” said Archer; ”and two things I have seen which I never saw before; a whole bevy of quail killed without the escape of one bird, and a whole bevy killed entirely by double shots, except the odd bird. You, A---, have killed three double shots--I have killed three--Tom Draw one double shot, and the odd bird; and Master Frank there, confound him, six double shots running--the cleverest thing I ever heard of, and, in Forester's case, the best shooting possible. I have missed one bird, you two, and Tom three.”
”But Tom beant a goin' to miss no more birds, I can tell you, boy. Tom's drinked agin, and feels kind o' righter than he did--kind o' first best!
You'd best all drink, boys--the spring's handy, close by here; and after we gits down acrost the road into the big swamp, and h.e.l.l-Hole, there arn't a drop o' water fit to drink, till we gits way down to Aunt Sally's big spring-hole, jest to home.”
”I second the motion,” said Harry; ”and then let us be quick, for the day is wearing away, and we have got a long beat yet before us. I wish it were a sure one. But it is not. Once in three or four years we get a grand day's sport in the big swamp; but for one good day we have ten bad ones. However, we are sure to find a dozen birds or so in h.e.l.l-Hole; and a bevy of quail in the Captain's swamp, shan't we, Tom?”
”Yes, if we gits so far; but somehow or other I rather guess we'll find quite a smart chance o' c.o.c.k. Captain Reed was down there a' Satterday, and he saw heaps on 'em.”
”That's no sure sign. They move very quickly now. Here today and there to-morrow,” said Archer. ”In the large woods especially. In the small places there are plenty of sure finds.”
”There harn't been nothing of frosts yet keen enough to stir them,” said Tom. ”I guess we'll find them. And there harn't been a gun shot off this three weeks there. Hoel's wife's ben down sick all the fall, and Halbert's gun busted in the critter's hand.”
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