"Hush!" he suddenly exclaimed. "We lost something that time; I heard a bird."
"Nothin', barrin' a crow," observed Billy.
"A plover, sir; it was the cry of a plover," evasively retorted the other.
"Holy Vargin! do ye hear this? A pluvver! Divvle resave the pluvver ever was seen in the barony!"
"Silence, Doyle!" I shouted, finding that my retainer's observations were becoming personal and unpleasant.
"Troth, we'll all be silent enough by-an'-by."
We had been walking for about half an hour, when Mr Simpson suggested that it might be advisable to separate, he taking one direction, I taking the other, but both moving in parallel lines. Having joyfully assented to this proposition, as the careless manner in which he handled his gun was fraught with the direst consequences, I moved into an adjacent bog, leaving my guest to blaze away at what I considered a safe distance. I took Billy with me, both for company and for counsel, as my guest's assumed ignorance of the fundamental principles of shooting had somewhat puzzled me.
"It's a quare bisniss intirely, Masther Jim. He knows no more how to howld a gun nor you do to howld a baby, more betoken ye've two av the finest childre—God be good to them!—in Europe. I don't like for to say he's coddin' us, wud his tigers an' elephants an' combusticles, but, be me song, it luks very like it. I'd like for to see him shootin', that wud putt an ind to the question."
At this moment, bang! bang! went the two barrels of my guest's gun. Billy and I ran to the hedge, and peeping through, perceived Simpson running very fast towards a clump of furze, shouting and gesticulating violently. I jumped across the fence, and was rapidly approaching him, when he waved me back.
"Stop! don't come near me! I'm into them. There are quantities of snipe here."