"A pretty burst," he said to me, "a pretty burst, Frank, and a good
kill; but they can't stand before the hounds, the foxes here, like our
stout islanders; they are not forced to work so hard to gain their
living. But now let us get homeward; I want my breakfast, I can tell
you, and then a rattle at the quail. I mean to get full forty brace
to-day, I promise you."
"And we," said I, "have marked down fifteen brace already toward it;
right in the line of our beat, Tom says."
"That's right; well, let us go on."
And in a short half hour we were all once again assembled about Tom's
hospitable board, and making such a breakfast, on every sort of eatable
that can be crowded on a breakfast table, as sportsmen only have a right
to make; nor they, unless they have walked ten, or galloped half as many
miles, before it.
Before we had been in an hour, Harry once again roused us out. All had
been, during our absence, fully prepared by the indefatigable Tim; who,
as the day before, accoutered with spare shot and lots of provender,
seemed to grudge us each morsel that we ate, so eager was he to see us
take the field in season.
Off we went then; but what boots it to repeat a thrice told tale;
suffice it, that the dogs worked as well as dogs can work; that birds
were plentiful, and lying good; that we fagged hard, and shot on the
whole passably, so that by sunset we had exceeded Harry's forty brace by
fifteen birds, and got beside nine couple and a half of woodcock; which
we found, most unexpectedly, basking themselves in the open meadow,
along the grassy banks of a small rill, without a bush or tree within
five hundred yards of them.
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