“Yes,” sais I, “Mr Monaghan; fire and welcome.”
Well, up he comes to the toe-line, and puts himself into attitude, scientific like. First he throws his left leg out, and then braces back the right one well behind him, and then he shuts his left eye to, and makes an awful wry face, as if he was determined to keep every bit of light out of it, and then he brought his gun up to the shoulder with a duce of a flourish, and took a long, steady aim. All at once he lowered the piece.
“I think I’ll do it better knalin’, your Honour,” said he, “the way I did when I fired at Lord Blarney’s land-agent, from behind the hedge, for lettin’ a farm to a Belfast heretic. Oh! didn’t I riddle him, your Honour.” He paused a moment, his tongue had run away with him. “His coat, I main,” said he. “I cut the skirts off as nait as a tailor could. It scared him entirely, so, when he see the feathers flyin’ that way, he took to flight, and I never sot eyes on him no more. I shouldn’t wonder if he is runnin’ yet.”
So he put down one knee on the ground, and adjusting himself said, “I won’t leave so much as a hair of that target, to tell where it stood.” He took a fresh aim, and fired, and away he went, heels over head, the matter of three or four times, and the gun flew away behind him, ever so far.
“Oh!” sais he, “I am kilt entirely. I am a dead man, Master Sam. By the holy poker, but my arm is broke.”
“I am afraid my gun is broke,” said I, and off I set in search of it.
“Stop, yer Honour,” said he, “for the love of Heaven, stop, or she’ll be the death of you.”
“What?” sais I.
“There are five more shots in her yet, Sir. I put in six cartridges, so as to make sure of that paper kite, and only one of them is gone off yet. Oh! my shoulder is out, Master Sam. Don’t say a word of it, Sir, to the ould cratur, and—”
“To who?” said I.