“No, my boy; one charge ploughed up the sawdust below the target on the right, and the other scored the white-washed wall three feet to the left of the second target.”
“But do you think it is a good gun, uncle? I aimed quite straight.”
“We’ll see, Nat,” he replied, taking the gun from my hand, and reloading it with a quick cleverness of hand that fascinated me.
Then raising the gun he fired both barrels in rapid succession, hardly seeming to take aim, and as the smoke rose above our heads we all walked towards the targets, which looked like currant dumplings.
The man with us rubbed his hands with satisfaction, saying that it was a capital close pattern, which my uncle afterwards explained to me meant that the shot marks were very close and regular all over the targets, instead of being scattered irregularly, which he said was a great disadvantage in a gun.
“I don’t think, sir, that you’ll find many guns do better than that, sir; and, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, I don’t think many gentlemen would have made two such clever shots.”
“There is no cleverness in it,” said my uncle quietly. “When a man spends all his days with a gun in his hand it becomes like second nature to him to hit that at which he aims. Yes, I like the gun. Now, Nat, what do you say—which was in fault last time?”
“I was, uncle,” I said rather ruefully. “I thought it would be so easy to shoot.”
“So it is, my boy, when you have had practice. Now come back and we will not lose any more time in selecting pieces. You shall have that gun and that rifle, and we will have a couple of hours’ practice at loading and firing.”
We walked back to the table, and as we did so I saw a man thrust a long-handled brush from a loophole at the side of the wall and whiten the targets once more.