Chapter III

Percy's first essay at shooting in the open air was a very exciting business. He had already learned in the shooting-school how to hold a gun, and had received a few instructions, three out of four of which he had immediately forgotten; but he was, for all that, sufficiently confident to feel happy, as he came down on the great morning of which Farquharson, the gamekeeper, had been previously warned. Percy's own gun was not yet arrived from town; but it was understood that Farquharson's would do.

Scene One, so to speak, was his appearance in the hall at twenty-five minutes past ten, where his father was reading the Times by the fire, and Helen was waiting to see her brother start. His mother also sailed out of the morning-room so soon as she heard Helen's excited comments.

" What are those funny little leather things for on your shoulders? And why aren't they the same colour as your jacket?"

Percy explained loftily that these were to prevent the gun from wearing out the jacket.

44 Oh! I see," said Helen, "But I don't see why they shouldn't be the same colour as the cloth."

" He looks very well," observed his mother. " But why have you turned up your collar? "

Percy shrank from saying that he had done so before the wardrobe glass in his room just now, in order to give himself a reckless and weather-beaten appearance. He said he thought it would be cold.

"Nonsense. Turn it down: it looks ridiculous/'

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Percy felt rather bitter at this inspection. Women, he reflected, like being looked at: men don't. At least so he assured himself interiorly. He turned down his collar.

" And why don't your spats come down further? They look silly like that," observed Helen.

" How stupid you are! " cried Percy. " They aren't spats at all. They're — I forget the name; but they're just to prevent wet and things getting into the boots."

"Oh!" said Helen.

" Farquharson's just come, madam," remarked Underbill, suddenly appearing through the door that led to the servants' quarters.

Again Percy was annoyed. It was he who ought to have been addressed, he thought. After all, it was he who was going out shooting.

" Tell him to come round this side," he said loftily.

" Nonsense, my dear; he's got the ferrets with him. (Tell Farquharson Mr. Percy will come round at once.) Then you'll be in to lunch, Percy, at one; to tell us how you've got on."

" Mind you hold your gun straight," cried Helen after him, as he went down the steps.

Scene Two was the progress to the Place of Death.

Percy did not like to ask that he might carry the gun; though he thought it was scarcely sportsmanlike not to do so. And Farquharson seemed unduly overloaded. He had a heavy canvas bag over one shoulder, out of which came the sound of violent scratching, and occasionally a squeak. A cartridge-bag was strapped over the same shoulder; and over the other he carried the gun.

" Looks a good gun," said Percy genially.

" Yes, sir. Good old gun. But old-fashioned, sir. Hammer-gun, sir."

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Farquharson was a brief and abrupt kind of man, and with a very masterful and competent air. He was sturdily built, and tramped emphatically, rather than walked.

" Many's the bird I've killed with that gun, sir."

"Oh! Have you?" said Percy. "Well: I.., I hope I shall."

There was silence for a little.

It was a genial and boisterous sort of day, and quite cold enough for Percy presently to turn up his collar once more. The sun came out now and again from behind the flying clouds, and painted sudden vivid patches of colour on the winter woods and the brown of the fallen leaves.

"The mistress said it was to be rabbits to-day, sir," remarked Farquharson suddenly.

"Yes; I... er... I thought I'd better begin with that"

But Farquharson would not take the hint.

" But I don't suppose the mistress would mind if we had a try at a pheasant, later on, sir. That is if you make a good job of the rabbits, sir."

" I... er... don't expect I shall be up to much," said Percy, anxious to prepare the keeper for the worst.

"Don't say that, sir. We never know till we try, do we, sir?"

The place of destiny was a large burrow at the very edge of the woods. It resembled in shape half a saucer, tilted at a sharp angle; and this saucer of sandy earth, Percy presently made out, was honeycombed with holes.

The keeper set down the writhing bag at the foot of a tree, and Percy took up the gun which the other had just leaned against a tree-trunk.

" How bright the barrels are! " he observed, after an inspection down the muzzle.

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Farquharson looked up abruptly.

" Never do that, sir, if you please," he said sharply. " That's not the way to look down a gun. Down the breach, sir, if you please."

Percy felt that he hated Farquharson very much indeed.

The opening of the bag presently distracted him. He had never in his life, so far as he remembered, seen ferrets before, and was intensely curious to know what they looked like. Obviously he dared not ask.

When at last one little primrose-tinted creature was drawn out, moving its small hand-like paws irresolutely in the air, he was relieved to see how small it was. He stepped forward to stroke it, very kindly.

" That's not safe, sir, if you please," said the keeper, drawing it away. " Bite your finger as soon as look at you, sir. There, you beauty! "

He himself stroked it craftily on the top of its head and neck.

" But you can do it," protested the boy. "Yes, sir; because I know just how to hold him, sir. Savage creatures, ferrets. Otherwise no use to us, sir."

Scene Three now began.

The two ferrets were first dropped somewhere down the slope, where they writhed slowly about, peering this way and that, as if they were short-sighted. Farquharson scrambled back, loaded the gun, put it carefully into Percy's hands, and began to instruct him in a rapid whisper.

" No hurry, sir, no hurry! Don't get excited. Ferrets aren't gone to ground yet.... No, sir; they'll find their way in directly. Never you fear. And, sir, the rabbits may bolt anywhere. I can't tell you more than that. But they won't face the open, sir, if they can help it. They'll

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" But how do I know which way to look/' protested Percy, " if I don't know which way they'll go? "

(He felt somehow that the affair was not being managed as he had a right to expect from a paid gamekeeper. How on earth could he take proper aim, too, with all those tree-trunks in the way?)

"That's just it, sir. Got to be sharp, sir.... Ah! there's one! Too late, sir."

The world appeared to Percy, suddenly to spin; for a real live rabbit had bolted out a few yards away, and vanished again like a jumping croquet ball over rough ground, in another hole, round to the left, as Farquharson had said.

" I... I... I didn't see him properly," said Percy agitatedly.

" Not so loud, sir, if you please. Or you won't see no more."

It was nearly five minutes before Percy discharged his gun. Three more rabbits appeared during that time, but in each case, seemed, of set purpose, to take an unexpected line. The first, most unfairly, went to the right; the second looked out, regarded Percy with cocked ears with such an expression of disapproval that he was paralysed; and then, deciding, it would seem, that he was not worth looking at, vanished noiselessly. The third, most unfairly of all, made straight for the sportsman, missed him by a yard, and disappeared into the woods behind, leaving Percy turning violently round and round, and inquiring what had become of him.

" Too late, sir. And you mustn't swing your gun round like that, sir; or you'll be shooting somebody one of these days."

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The actual firing of his first shot consoled him a little, and did the rabbit no harm. A very fat one suddenly lollopped out of a hole some twenty yards away, paused, went on a few yards and paused again. At that moment Percy decided to pull the trigger, but about two seconds before he actually did so, the rabbit also decided to make another move. A quantity of yellow dust flew into the air out of a mole-hill by which the rabbit had sat just now, and, what with the noise and the excitement and the kick of the gun, once more Percy found the world a blank.

" Well done, sir," came the low hearty voice of Farquharson.

" Where's the rabbit? Did I... did I... hit him? " " No, sir; but you got off the shot beautiful, sir. Better luck next time, sir."

Percy's first rabbit was scarcely as creditable to him as he would have wished.

A very, very young one came out, not eight yards away, and lay still, trembling. Percy took aim and fired.

" I got that one, anyhow," he cried.

Farquharson said nothing. He tramped down the slope, picked up the tiny body, and came back with it. Then he put it under the bag. Percy waited for congratulations; but they did not come.

" I... I got that one all right," he repeated.

" Yes, sir."

" It... it looked rather small," said Percy, beginning to be doubtful.

"Do very well for the ferrets, sir," said Farquharson, making the best of a very poor job.

There were moments that morning, however, when Percy was in a kind of ecstasy of self-contemplation —

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U86 moments when, waiting for Farquharson to pick up the ferrets, or to coax out a loiterer with shrill squeaking noises made by his lips, the boy leaned against a tree, with one boot over the other, the gun held in an easy manner, ready for a shot which obviously would not be called for; and thought what a fine figure he presented. Here was he, after all, in his own park, attended by his own gamekeeper, and shooting, or at least prepared to shoot, his own rabbits. That man there, in the velveteen-coat with the square- whiskered face, on all fours in the sand and making noises like a harmless maniac, was his servant who called him " sir," and was paid to do his bidding and teach him shooting.

The contrast was almost incredible, between the assured dignity of this position and the genteel ignominy of himself a few months ago, when he ate a hurried breakfast in a mean room that smelt of eggs and marmalade, and ran to catch the nine-seven in order that he might spend the rest of the day in doing things which he did not like, for inadequate pay, at the command of a bald head-clerk who had not an aspirate in his alphabet.

What would his old friends think of him now — Reggie, for instance — if they could see him, here, leaning against a tree, with his feet crossed, while his gamekeeper fished for his ferrets who had been hunting out his rabbits for him to shoot — or, at least, to shoot at: if they could realize what the whole life was which made such pastimes possible, in which such pastimes, in fact, were only a very small incident!

Reggie! — He considered him for a minute or two. Reggie was now, no doubt, at this very moment working feverishly at his job, in order to get to a good stopping-place in time for lunch. Then the lunch itself — a poor sloppy kind of meal in a dark restaurant underground —

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AN AVE ft AGE MAN a hasty Cinderella cigarette; and then back to the collar again, and the Australian shipping lines.... By the way, that week-end plan hadn't come off yet. It had been difficult to arrange for the first week or two after his own arrival at Marston; and now — well now — he was not quite so sure as to whether it would do. It wag a little difficult for the imagination to fit Reggie comfortably into Marston life, even for Sunday. His evening waistcoat would probably be cut wrong, or he would omit to bring evening shoes; or he would wear a white tie and a swallowtail coat at dinner instead of the dinner-jacket and black tie that Percy had thought the correct thing under the ordinary Marston circumstances.

And yet Percy did very violently wish, not to see Reggie at Marston, but for Reggie to see him there: and the two things appeared to stand or fall together. He might even take Reggie out ferreting for an hour before dark, if he came down by the early train — or, rather, take Reggie out to see him ferreting. He might leave an august message with Underhill.

" Mr. Percy is out shooting in the park. Would Mr. Ballard be kind enough to go out and join him in the park? One of the men will show Mr. Ballard the way."

The Slaying of the Pheasant, the climax of this glorious day, was performed, as was but right, at the close of the sport, half an hour before the dark came down in earnest.

He had been back to the house for lunch, with two rabbits to his account, besides the small one that had been hidden under the ferrets' bag.

" I got three," he said, as soon as he had a decent opportunity at lunch. " Farquharson's brought them in.

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At least he's bringing two. He's keeping one for the ferrets." (He did not give a more detailed description.)

"How many did you shoot at?" asked Helen brutally.

Percy looked at her in contempt.

" I didn't count the cartridges," he said.

• I expect there were too many," commented Helen, who seemed in a tiresome mood.

They had visited some more burrows after lunch; and Farquharson gave a small exhibition at one of how the thing really should be done.

" They'll all swell the bag, sir," he observed, after the fourth cartridge. " That's six altogether, sir. Not at all bad for a first day, sir."

A faint twinkle in Farquharson's eye enraged Percy. Did the man take him for a child?

" Keep those four separate," said the boy. " You shot those, you know."

"Very good, sir," said Farquharson.

The assault on the pheasants was made after a singularly poor performance on the part of Percy, at the last burrow. There were so many rabbits that he shot wildly.

" Better try at a bird," said Farquharson. " Nice little lot in the covert on the other side of the river, sir. P'raps, better luck with a bird. Birds want thinning, sir."

" Right," said Percy.

He was placed, upon arrival at the covert, in a little treeless hollow, fifteen yards from the thick rhododendrons that crowded up under the birches and beeches.

44 Just there, sir," said Farquharson. " I'll go round behind and beat. Don't fire into the covert, sir. Wait till they rise."

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Ah! this was the real thing!

Here he was, a gentleman of wealth, actually shooting expensive pheasants. Farmers, and people like that shot rabbits. •.. Every pheasant on the other hand cost its owner he thought he remembered from some book, at least one and sixpence. Or was that a stag? No: a stag was a hundred pounds. Well; anyhow a pheasant was very expensive and rich. And he was going to "knock them down," just for fun; because it was his pleasure to do it.

The thought of Gladys Farham suddenly recurred to him. He wished she could see him here... or Father Hilary. No; Gladys Farham would be better. She'd understand better what sort of person he really was, in his shooting-suit, with his little gaiters and his leather patches on the shoulders, and his own gun — well, not his own gun, but at any rate his gamekeeper's — his gamekeeper's. She'd respect him more then; and... and see how manly he was, gripping his gun, standing with his feet, a yard apart, among the bracken....

A loud crowing brought him back from visions to facts. But he was too late. Already a gigantic creature was mounting high over his head, making such a disconcerting noise that action was impossible. And even while he hesitated whether to fire or no, a similar crowing broke out in entirely the opposite direction. Really it was impossible to shoot when they came out like that! — two, almost together, in opposite directions.... Why couldn't Farquharson manage it better than that?

He turned savagely again to the covert, whence came now plainly the sounds of heavy footsteps over dead leaves, the tap of a stick against bush-stems, and a low truculent kind of voice. He fixed his eyes resolutely upon a perfectly clear patch of sky, between two feathery treetops, determined that the pheasant— if there happened

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Again came the crowing, mingled with taps and shakings; and, an instant later, there, right in the very patch of sky he had fixed upon, rose a form, dark in the evening light, monstrous and formidable.

He fired; but the form was gone behind the feathery tree-top on the right. He fired again, desperately and wildly; and, from the covert beneath burst out the figure of Farquharson, as if he were mad, running to the right.

Percy shouted an incoherent question. For a wild and horrible instant he thought, somehow, that he must have shot Farquharson in the face; but a genial, if also incoherent, answer came back; and the keeper vanished behind a slope in the ground.

Percy turned round; and there, not twenty yards away, stood Mabel and Helen.

Ill

Oh! but it was delicious to walk back with these two, particularly after Farquharson, breathless but respectfully triumphant, had returned with a large dead cock-pheasant in his hand.

"Beautiful shot, sir," panted Farquharson. "Second barrel got him fairly. Now that's your first pheasant, sir; ain't it?"

Really, it was very nearly as good as having Gladys Farham there. It was actually in the very moment of triumph, too, that they had come up.

" How well you did it! " said Helen admiringly. " And, oh! Percy, you did look so nice there against the rhododendrons, with your gun."

" I shot vilely, though," said Percy, desiring to be con-

Digitized by Google tradicted, as he tramped beside the girls, carrying his gun, too, this time, like a sportsman.

"Why did Farquharson run like that, if the pheasant was dead? " asked Helen.

Percy didn't know. He turned and repeated the question to Farquharson, who tramped behind.

" Bird not quite dead, sir. Winged, sir."

Helen hissed with pain.

" Oh! how horrid, Percy! Do kill them straight out! " " You don't suppose I wounded it on purpose? " snapped Percy.

How pleasant, too, to see the lights of the great house, kindling in window after window. There was tea waiting, and a hot bath. And Mabel would be at tea. That would be very nice. He liked Mabel rather.

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