I see you are lost; but I'll get it
all out of you some time."
They were by this time some way up the valley. There were rabbit
burrows everywhere among the thickets. The ferrets were put in.
Howard and Jack were posted below, and the shooting began. The
rabbits bolted well, and Howard experienced a lively satisfaction,
quite out of proportion, he felt, to the circumstances, at finding
that he could shoot a great deal better than his pupil. The old
knack came back to him, and he toppled over his rabbits cleanly and
in a masterly way.
"You are rather good at this!" said Jack. "Won't I blazon it abroad
up at Beaufort. You shall have all the credit and more. I can't see
how you always manage to get them in the head."
"It's a trick," said Howard; "you have got to get a particular
swing, and when you have got it, it's difficult to miss--it's only
practice; and I shot a good deal at one time."
Howard was unreasonably happy that afternoon. It was a still, sunny
day, and the steep down stretched away above them, an ancient
English woodland, with all its thorn-thickets and elder-clumps. It
had been like this, he thought, from the beginning of history,
never touched by the hand of man. The expectant waiting, the quick
aim, the sudden shot, took off the restlessness of his brain; and
as they stood there, often waiting for a long time in silence, a
peculiar quality of peace and contentment enveloped his spirit. It
was all so old, so settled, so quiet, that all sense of retrospect
and prospect passed from his mind.
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