“You have a gallery, I suppose, where I can try any piece I select?”
“Oh! yes, ma’am—I beg pardon—my lady,” said the gunmaker.
“Then I’ll try those two rifles, and those three shot guns—no, those two. That other is only just long enough in the stock for me. It would not suit a man. Stop; you shall try it, Dominic. Well,” she continued, smiling; “so you think it very unladylike for a woman to handle a gun, eh?”
“I—I did think something of the sort,” said Nic hesitatingly.
“Of course you would; but I have often had to handle a gun, Dominic. A woman who goes out with her husband into all kinds of savage places needs to be able to use a piece.”
“Then you have been in savage places?” said Nic.
“Often, my boy; and it is a dangerous place we are in now. And you’d like to ask whether I ever shot any one, eh?” she said, smiling. “No, I never did, and I hope I never shall. It was the power of being able to use a piece that has saved me from having to use it, Dominic. Wild people and ruffians don’t care about attacking people who can defend themselves.”
The gunmaker was ready with the charged guns, and he had led them into a long gallery with targets, where the lady astounded the man by her ability and knowledge of what a gun ought to be.
Then Nic had his first trials, and made so poor a business of it that Lady O’Hara said to him laughingly:
“Sure it must be a bad gun, with a crooked barrel. Let me try.”