Quick as light Ida takes the empty gun with one hand, and as he swings round passes him the cocked and loaded one with the other. “Bang!” Another bird topples head first out of the thinned covey. They are nearly sixty yards away now. “Bang!” again, and oh, joy and wonder! the last bird turns right over backwards, and falls dead as a stone some seventy paces from the muzzle of the gun.
He had killed four birds out of a single driven covey, which as shooters well know is a feat not often done even by the best driving shots.
“Bravo!” said Ida, “I was sure that you could shoot if you chose.”
“Yes,” he answered, “it was pretty good work;” and he commenced collecting the birds, for by this time the beaters were across the field. They were all dead, not a runner in the lot, and there were exactly six brace of them. Just as he picked up the last, George arrived, followed by Edward Cossey.
“Well I niver,” said the former, while something resembling a smile stole over his melancholy countenance, “if that bean’t the masterest bit of shooting that ever I did see. Lord Walsingham couldn’t hardly beat that hisself—fifteen empty cases and twelve birds picked up. Why,” and he turned to Edward, “bless me, sir, if I don’t believe the Colonel has won them gloves for Miss Ida after all. Let’s see, sir, you got two brace this last drive and one the first, and a leash the second, and two brace and a half the third, six and a half brace in all. And the Colonel, yes, he hev seven brace, one bird to the good.”
“There, Mr. Cossey,” said Ida, smiling sweetly, “I have won my gloves. Mind you don’t forget to pay them.”
“Oh, I will not forget, Miss de la Molle,” said he, smiling also, but not too prettily. “I suppose,” he said, addressing the Colonel, “that the last covey twisted up and you browned them.”
“No,” he answered quietly, “all four were clear shots.”
Mr. Cossey smiled again, as he turned away to hide his vexation, an incredulous smile, which somehow sent Harold Quaritch’s blood leaping through his veins more quickly than was good for him. Edward Cossey would rather have lost a thousand pounds than that his adversary should have got that extra bird, for not only was he a jealous shot, but he knew perfectly well that Ida was anxious that he should lose, and desired above all things to see him humiliated. And then he, the smartest shot within ten miles round, to be beaten by a middle-aged soldier shooting with a strange gun, and totally unaccustomed to driven birds! Why, the story would be told over the county; George would see to that. His anger was so great when he thought of it, that afraid of making himself ridiculous, he set off with his bearer towards the Castle without another word, leaving the others to follow.
Ida looked after him and smiled. “He is so conceited,” she said; “he cannot bear to be beaten at anything.”