There was a ravine between them and the forest, which the purple haze of distance had hidden from their view, but, as they were bent on reaching the pines by hook or by crook, they descended. The grass grew greener at the bottom of this dale, and here they found a stream of pure water, with a bottom of golden sand and boulders. This was a temptation not to be resisted, so they threw themselves down on the bank after quenching their thirsty and proceeded, in a languid and dreamy kind of manner, to watch the movements of the shoals of speckled trout that gambolled in the stream, chasing each other round the stones, and poking each other in the ribs with their round slimy noses.
“Don’t they look happy?” said Rory, “and wouldn’t they eat nicely?”
“Which reminds me,” said Allan, “that I’ve something good in my bag.”
“And ain’t I hungry just!” Rory said; and his eyes sparkled as Allan produced, all neatly begirt with a towel of sparkling whiteness, a dish containing a pie of such delicious flavour that when it was finished, and washed down with what Rory, mimicking the rich brogue of his countrymen, called “a taste of the stramelet,” they both thought they had never dined so well before.
Half-a-dozen wood-pigeons flew hurriedly over them. Rory seized Allan’s gun and fired, and one dropped dead within a dozen yards of them. Such a beauty, so plump and so large.
“That is our game,” cried Rory; “let us on to the wood. We’ll get such bags as will make Ralph chew his tongue with regret that he wasn’t with us.”
“Hoo-hoo-hooo-o!” resounded from the spruce thickets as they neared the woods.
“Here, at them?” cried Allan, excitedly. “Now for it, my boy!”
“Yes,” said Rory; “it’s all very well, but I can’t pot them so well with the rifle.”
“Then in all brotherly love and fairness we’ll exchange guns every twenty minutes.”