Pitching my gun up to my shoulder, both barrels loaded with Eley's red
wire cartridge No. 6, I gave him a snap shot, and had the satisfaction
of seeing him keeled well over, not wing-tipped or leg-broken, but
fairly riddled by the concentrated charge of something within thirty
yards. Turning as quick as light, I caught a fleet sight of the other,
which by a rapid zig-zag was now flying full across my front, certainly
over forty-five yards distant, among a growth of thick-set saplings--the
hardest shot, in my opinion, that can be selected to test a quick and
steady sportsman. I gave it him, and down he came too--killed dead--that
I knew, for I had shot full half a yard before him. Just as I dropped my
butt to load, the hill began to echo with the vociferous yells of master
Dan, the quick redoubled cracks of Harry's heavy dog-whip, and his
incessant rating--"Down, cha-arge! For sha-ame! Dan! Dan! down cha-arge!
for sha-ame! "--broken at times by the impatient oaths of Tom Draw, in
the gulley, who had, it seems, knocked down two woodcock, neither of
which he could bag, owing to the depth and instability of the wet bog.
"Quit! quit! cuss you, quit there, leatherin that brute! Quit, I say, or
I'll send a shot at you! Come here, Archer--I say, come here!--there be
the darndest lot of droppins here, I ever see--full twenty cock, I
swon!"
But still the scourge continued to resound, and still the raving of the
spaniel excited Tom's hot ire.
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