Great heavens!
We rushed down the hill as one man—and came up again looking not a little hot and uncommonly foolish. The sheep was there, it is true, stiff and stark in the bracken; but more senses than one apprised us of the fact that it had been dead for considerably more than five minutes. Gerald had stumbled on to the corpse, and had turned his discovery, we afterwards admitted, to remarkably good advantage. It was "Mr Standish's turn," as Miss Buncle, in the picturesque but mysterious vernacular of her race, remarked at luncheon, "to hold the baby this time."
After the third drive we gladly put up our guns and tramped down the hillside to the road below, where the ladies were waiting and the feast was spread. After we had disposed of grouse sandwiches, whisky-and-water, and jammy scones, and were devoting our post-prandial leisure to repose or dalliance with the fair—according as we were married or single—Lady Rubislaw inquired—
"Where are you shooting this afternoon, John?"
"The Neb, first," replied the Admiral. "And that reminds me, the man who drew the top butt had better start now, or he'll be late."
With many groans, and followed by the mingled derision and sympathy of the company, I picked up my impedimenta and started, leaving the others to decide who, if any, of the shooters was to have the honour of entertaining a lady in his butt.
The Neb was a great mountain spur, whose base ran to within two or three hundred yards of our resting-place. In appearance it roughly resembled a mighty Napoleonic nose. The butts ran right up the ridge of that organ; and nine hundred feet above where we sat, just below an excrescence locally known as "The Pimple," lay mine.
I reached my eyrie at last, and having laid my flask, tobacco-pouch, and twelve loose cartridges where I could reach them most handily on projecting shelves of peat inside the butt—I love neatness and method: Kitty says that when (if ever) I get to heaven I will decline to enter until I have wiped my boots,—settled down to enjoy a superb view and take note of the not altogether uninteresting manner in which the other members of the party were disposing themselves for the drive.
Just below me were Standish and Miss Buncle, the lady a conspicuous mark for all men (and grouse) to behold by reason of a red tam o'shanter, the sight of which made me regret that its wearer was not employed as a beater. In the butt below were Dermott and Dolly—both very workmanlike and inconspicuous. Below them came the Admiral, with his wife (she always came and sat behind him, like a remarkably smart little powder-monkey, during the afternoon drive): below them, the Gilmertons; and last of all, thank Heaven! Gerald.
The shooting on this beat would not be easy, though birds were always plentiful. They came round the face of the hill at very short range and express speed. My particular butt was notoriously difficult to score from. There was an awkward hummock in front of it, and driven birds swinging into view round this were practically right over the butt before its occupant could get his gun up.