The turkeys took wing—rose higher and higher—then flew in circles round and round the place from whence they had been so suddenly and so roughly scared. But one of them, which had received several grains of shot, and just retained sufficient strength to raise himself to the lower bough of a neighbouring oak, settled there, flapped his wings once or twice, and then fell down again, from his elevated perch, dead.
Von Schwanthal shook his head. The turkey fell very light for so heavy a bird. But his companions left him no time for reflection.
"Hurrah!" exclaimed Meier, as he sprang forward, and raised up one of the slain; "hurrah! now we've got a roast!—Oh, geminy! what a stench there is here!"
"But that was a shot!" said the brewer. "Five at once!—and such creatures! If one could get such a shot every day, I should go shooting myself."
Von Schwanthal had lifted up the one which had fallen by its naked head, and weighed it in his hand.
"Remarkably light!" said he.
"Why, that bird has the head of an eagle!" exclaimed Becher, who had now also joined them. "Why, that's a singular creature!"
"But are they turkeys, after all?" asked Siebert, junior.
"Well, what else should they be!" opined the shoemaker. "They're certainly not partridges!"