Wallis's nephew had several times invited me to pay him a visit at his uncle's house, at Crouchend; and so once, during the absence of that gentleman who was ruralizing at Tonbridge, I trudged down to his villa.
Nothing would suit Master John, but that he must 'have out' his uncle's gun; and we certainly shot at, and frightened, many sparrows.
He was just pointing at a fresh quarry, when the loud crow of a cock arrested his arm.
"That's Doddington's game 'un, I know," said Master John. "What d'ye think—if he did'nt 'pitch into' our 'dunghill' the other day, and laid him dead at a blow. I owe him one!—Come along." I followed in his footsteps, and soon beheld Chanticleer crowing with all the ostentation of a victor at the hens he had so ruthlessly widowed. A clothes-horse, with a ragged blanket, screened us from his view; and Master'John, putting the muzzle of his gun through a hole in this novel ambuscade, discharged its contents point blank into the proclaimer of the morn—and laid him low.
I trembled; for I felt that we had committed a 'foul murder.' Master Johnny, however, derided my fears—called it retributive justice—and ignominiously consigned the remains of a game-cock to a dunghill!
The affair appeared so like a cowardly assassination, in which I was (though unwillingly—) 'particeps criminis'—that I walked away without partaking of the gooseberry-pie, which he had provided for our supper.
CHAPTER VI.—A Commission.
"Och! thin, Paddy, what's the bothuration; if you carry me, don't I carry the whiskey, sure, and that's fair and aqual!"
"Och! thin, Paddy, what's the bothuration; if you carry me, don't I carry the whiskey, sure, and that's fair and aqual!"