In twenty minutes the work was done; and it was well that it was done; for, within a quarter of an hour afterwards, it was too dark to shoot at all.
In that last twenty minutes twenty-two cock were actually brought to bag, by the eight barrels; twenty-eight had been picked up, one by one, as they came down the long swamp, and one Harry had killed in the morning. When Timothy met them, with the horses, at the big oak tree, half an hour afterward--for he had gone off across the fields, as hard as he could foot it to the farm, as soon as he had received the setters --it was quite dark; and the friends had counted their game out regularly, and hung it up secundum artem in the loops of the new game bag.
It was a huge day's sport--a day's sport to talk about for years afterward--Tom Draw does talk about it now!
Fifty-one woodcock, forty-nine English snipe, twenty-seven quail, and a brace of ruffed grouse. A hundred and twenty-nine head in all, on unpreserved ground, and in very wild walking. It is to be feared it will never be done any more in the vale of Warwick. For this, alas! was ten years ago.
When they reached Tom's it was decided that they should all return home on the morrow; that Harry should attend to the procuring his purchase money; and Tom to the cheapening of the purchase.
In addition to this, the old boy swore, by all his patron saints, that he would come down in spring, and have a touch at the snipe he had heerd Archer tell on at Pine Brook.
A capital supper followed; and of course lots of good liquor, and the toast, to which the last cup was quaffed, was LONG LIFE TO HARRY ARCHER, AND LUCK TO HIS SHOOTING BOX, to which Frank Forester added: "I wish he may get it."
And so that party ended; all of its members hoping to enjoy many more like it, and that very speedily.