The number of guns had been brought up to seven by the inclusion of a neighbouring laird--one Gilmerton of Nethercraigs--and his son.

"All the same, we are still a man short," complained the Admiral, to whom a house-party was a ship's company, and a day's shooting a sort of terrestrial naval manoeuvre. "However, we will cut out the end butt in each drive and put a stop there to turn the birds farther in. Now we'll draw for places. Each man to take the butt whose number he draws, counting from the right and moving up one place after each drive. And Heaven help the man who draws number four now, for it means number seven and a climb up The Pimple for him directly after lunch!"

There was a general laugh at this, which swelled to an unseemly roar when I drew the fatal number.

However, after lunch was a long way off, and I trotted contentedly to number four and settled down to a pipe, while the head-keeper led off his mixed multitude of assistants, dogs, boys, and red flags to make a _detour_ and work the game up towards us.

The first drive was simple. We were in a long and rather shallow glen, across which ran a low ridge, dividing it into two almost equal sections. The butts were placed along this ridge; and after the birds had been sent over us the beaters would work round to the other end of the glen and drive them back again. The shooting would be easy, for the ground lay flat and open in either direction.

I found myself between Standish and Gerald; the former on my right, and the latter, together with the young keeper to whom his shooting education had been entrusted, in the butt on my left. Beyond Standish was Dermott, the crack shot of the party, and beyond Dermott, in number one butt, was the Admiral. The Gilmertons, _pere et fils_, occupied the butts on the extreme left.

The drive was moderately successful. At first the birds came along singly, mostly on the right, and fell an easy prey to Dermott and the Admiral. But presently a great pack got up comparatively near the butts, and fairly "rushed" us. I brought off an easy right and left straight in front of me, and then, snapping out my cartridges and slipping another in, I swung round and just managed to bring down a third bird with a "stern chaser"--a feat which I regretted to observe no one else noticed, for there was a perfect fusilade all along the line at the moment.

Master Gerald, who had discharged his first barrel straight into the "brown," succeeded, in obedience to his mentor's admonitions, in covering an old cock-grouse with his second, and carefully following that flustered fowl's course with the point of his gun, pulled the trigger just as it skimmed, low down, with an agitated squawk, between his butt and mine. I heard the shot rattle through the heather, and two pellets hit on my left boot.

The congenial task of telling Gerald, in a low but penetrating voice, exactly what I thought of him, occupied my attention so fully for the next minute that I failed to observe a blackcock which suddenly swung up into view and whizzed straight past my head, to the audible annoyance of the distant Admiral and the undisguised joy of my unrepentant relative.

No more birds came after that, and presently, the line of beaters having advanced within range, we put down our guns and collected the slain. We had not done badly, considering the fact that the main body of the birds had swerved away to our left over the unoccupied butt, despite the valiant efforts of an urchin with a red flag to turn them. Dermott headed the list with four and a half brace, and Gerald brought up the rear with a mangled corpse which had received the contents of his first barrel point-blank at a distance of about six feet. The laird of Nethercraigs (a cautious and economical sportsman, who was reputed never to loose off his gun at anything which did not come and perch on his butt) had fired just three cartridges and killed just three birds, but his son had seven. The Admiral and Standish had also had average luck, and altogether we had fourteen and a half brace to show for our exertions.

Off went the beaters again, and we changed butts and waited. The second drive gave us fewer birds but better sport. There were no great packs, but we got plenty to do in the way of sharp-shooting, and Gerald's keeper--a singularly ambiguous title in this case--succeeded by increased vigilance in preserving me from being further sniped by my enterprising brother-in-law.

We totalled up twelve brace this time, and then made ready for a tramp to the next line of butts, away round the shoulder of a fairly distant hill.

"We may as well spread out and walk 'em up this bit," said our host. "We can't have the dogs, though, as the keepers and beaters are going a different way; and each man will have to carry what he shoots. In that case we'll leave rabbits alone. Gerald, you had better get to the extreme left of the line. That will limit the risk to one man!"

"I'll carry home your bag if you'll carry mine, Gerald," cried Standish facetiously, as my brother-in-law, a trifle offended at the Admiral's last pleasantry, proceeded with much dignity to his allotted place.

Gerald was almost out of earshot, but he waved a defiant acquiescence.

We tramped round the shoulder of the hill, keeping our distance as well as we could on the steep slope, and occasionally putting up something to shoot at. My bag this time made no great demands on my powers of porterage, consisting as it did of a solitary snipe. However, when nearly an hour later we gathered at the foot of the next line of butts--the last before lunch--most of us were carrying something.

Standish gleefully displayed two hares and a brace of grouse.

"There is something for Master Gerald to carry back to the luncheon-cart," he said. "I wonder what he has got for me. Where is he?"

"I don't quite know," said Dermott, who had been Gerald's nearest neighbour. "He was so offended by our gibes about the danger of his society that he walked rather wide of me. He kept down at the very foot of the hill most of the time, almost out of sight."

"I hope he hasn't shot himself," said the Admiral rather anxiously.

"Never fear!" said I. "That will not be his end. Here he is."

Sure enough, Gerald appeared at this moment. He was empty-handed.

Simple and primitive jests greeted him.

"Hallo, old man, what have you shot--eh? Where is your little lot?"

Gerald smiled seraphically.

"You'll find it down there," he said--"in that patch of bracken, Standish. I left it for you to bring up. Rather heavy for me."

"What on earth have you shot?" we cried involuntarily.

"A sheep," said Gerald calmly.

Great heavens!

We rushed down the hill as one man--and came up again looking not a little hot and uncommonly foolish. The sheep was there, it is true, stiff and stark in the bracken; but more senses than one apprised us of the fact that it had been dead for considerably more than five minutes.

Gerald had stumbled on to the corpse, and had turned his discovery, we afterwards admitted, to remarkably good advantage. It was "Mr Standish's turn," as Miss Buncle, in the picturesque but mysterious vernacular of her race, remarked at luncheon, "to hold the baby this time."

After the third drive we gladly put up our guns and tramped down the hillside to the road below, where the ladies were waiting and the feast was spread. After we had disposed of grouse sandwiches, whisky-and-water, and jammy scones, and were devoting our post-prandial leisure to repose or dalliance with the fair--according as we were married or single--Lady Rubislaw inquired--

"Where are you shooting this afternoon, John?"

"The Neb, first," replied the Admiral. "And that reminds me, the man who drew the top butt had better start now, or he'll be late."

With many groans, and followed by the mingled derision and sympathy of the company, I picked up my _impedimenta_ and started, leaving the others to decide who, if any, of the shooters was to have the honour of entertaining a lady in his butt.

The Neb was a great mountain spur, whose base ran to within two or three hundred yards of our resting-place. In appearance it roughly resembled a mighty Napoleonic nose. The butts ran right up the ridge of that organ; and nine hundred feet above where we sat, just below an excrescence locally known as "The Pimple," lay mine.

I reached my eyrie at last, and having laid my flask, tobacco-pouch, and twelve loose cartridges where I could reach them most handily on projecting shelves of peat inside the butt--I love neatness and method: Kitty says that when (if ever) I get to heaven I will decline to enter until I have wiped my boots,--settled down to enjoy a superb view and take note of the not altogether uninteresting manner in which the other members of the party were disposing themselves for the drive.

Just below me were Standish and Miss Buncle, the lady a conspicuous mark for all men (and grouse) to behold by reason of a red tam o'shanter, the sight of which made me regret that its wearer was not employed as a beater. In the butt below were Dermott and Dolly--both very workmanlike and inconspicuous. Below them came the Admiral, with his wife (she always came and sat behind him, like a remarkably smart little powder-monkey, during the afternoon drive): below them, the Gilmertons; and last of all, thank Heaven! Gerald.

The shooting on this beat would not be easy, though birds were always plentiful. They came round the face of the hill at very short range and express speed. My particular butt was notoriously difficult to score from. There was an awkward hummock in front of it, and driven birds swinging into view round this were practically right over the butt before its occupant could get his gun up.

It was a rather sleepy afternoon. Far away I could hear the sound of the advancing beaters--the cries of the boys, the occasional barking of a dog, and the shrill piping of the headkeeper's whistle. Suddenly three birds swung into view round the face of the hill, and made straight for the line of butts. They were just below me, nearer to Standish's butt than mine, but I put up my gun and picked off the nearest. The other two, instead of keeping on their course over Standish's head, suddenly swerved round to the left, almost at right angles--I think they had seen Miss Buncle's tam o' shanter and simultaneously decided that there are worse things than death--and flew straight down the line, followed by an ineffectual volley from the twelve and twenty-eight bores respectively.

"Now, Dermott, my boy!" I ejaculated, as the birds skimmed past the third butt. "There's a chance for a really pretty right and left."

But no sound--no movement even--came from our crack's lair. The birds flew by unharmed, only to fall later on, one to the Admiral, and one to young Gilmerton.

"_Dormitat Homerus_," I murmured, gazing curiously towards Dermott's butt. "I wonder if--Jove, there they go! What a pack! Well done, Gerald!

Oh, Gilmerton, you old _sweep_! Fire, man, _fire_! Good old Admiral!

Dermott, man, what the devil---- Have _at_ them!"

I fairly danced in the heather. A perfect cloud of birds was pouring over the lower part of the line. The Admiral, the Gilmertons, and Gerald were firing fast and furiously,--even the laird of Nethercraigs loosed off at birds that were neither running nor sitting,--and when the beaters appeared in sight five minutes later, and the drive came to an end, the four lower butts totalled twelve brace among them.

I humbly proffered my solitary contribution.

"Twelve and a half," said the Admiral. "Now, Standish?"

"N.E. this time," remarked that youth philosophically.

The Admiral said nothing, but I saw his choleric blue eyes slide round in the direction of Miss Buncle's headgear. He turned to Dermott.

"How many, old man?"

"Blob!"

That Dermott should return empty-handed from any kind of chase was so surprising that we all turned round for the explanation. Dermott was looking very dejected. This was evidently a blow to his professional pride.