Then Ewen Oig, wild with excitement, sprang again to the summit of the tower, wrenched away the target, and it was carried round the field, with the pipes playing before it, while we, by three hearty bursts of applause, were hailed the victors of the shooting-butts.
'By Jove,' exclaimed Clavering, 'I wish I could do this!'
'So you might, Captain, easily, if your bullets had been cast in the same mould.'
'How—what do you mean?'
'In the mould of old Mhari's father, the forester of Coille-tor.'
'The deuce! you don't mean to say they are charmed,' said the Captain, laughing; 'enchanted—bewitched?'
'Perhaps they are, and perhaps they are not. I say nothing; but I wounded the white stag with one.'
'Ha, ha, ha! capital—I like this!' exclaimed Clavering.
'Der Freischutz in the North—a second Hans Rudner,' said Laura Everingham; 'but the prizes are undoubtedly theirs.'
'By Jove, how a few such fellows would have picked off the Russians from the rifle-pits!'