Several thick, cable-like vines, that struggled up to the summit, promised an easy means of ascent; and, although the Cockney could climb about as dexterously as a shod cat, he fancied there could be no great difficulty in attaining the top of the dead-wood.
Throwing aside his gun, he entered enthusiastically upon the attempt.
The feat was not so easy of performance but that it cost him an exertion. Stimulated, however, by the desire to retrieve his game and the reflections about the game-bag, already alluded to, he put forth his utmost energies, and succeeded in reaching the summit.
His conjecture proved correct. There lay the bird—not on the stump, but in it—at the bottom of a large cylinder-shaped concavity, which opened several feet down into the heart of the dead-wood. There it was, dead as the tree itself.
The sportsman could not restrain himself from uttering a cry of joy—as he saw his fine game at length secure within his reach.
It proved not exactly within his reach, however: as, upon kneeling down and stretching his arm to its full length, he found that he could not touch the bird, even with the tips of his fingers.
That signified little. It would only be necessary for him to descend into the cavity, and this he could easily do: as it was wide enough, and not over four feet in depth.
Without further reflection, he rose to his feet again and leaped down into the hole.
It would have been a wiser act if he had remembered the prudent counsel of the paternal frog, and looked before leaping. That was one of the most unfortunate leaps Mr Smythje had ever made in his life. The brown surface upon which the bird lay, and which looked so deceptively solid, was nothing more than a mass of rotten heartwood, honeycombed with long decay. So flimsy was it in structure, that though supporting a dead bird, it gave way under the weight of a living man; and the lord of Montagu Castle shot as rapidly out of sight as if he had leaped feet foremost from the mainyard of the Sea Nymph into the deepest soundings of the Atlantic!