They broke back, went off to one side or the
other, and generally misbehaved themselves. In the first drive the
Colonel and Edward Cossey got a bird each. In the second drive the
latter got three birds, firing five shots, and his antagonist only got
a hare and a pheasant that jumped out of a ditch, neither of which, of
course, counted anything. Only one brace of birds came his way at all,
but if the truth must be told, he was talking to Ida at the moment and
did not see them till too late.
Then came a longer drive, when the birds were pretty plentiful. The
Colonel got one, a low-flying Frenchman, which he killed as he topped
the fence, and after that for the life of him he could not touch a
feather. Every sportsman knows what a fatal thing it is to begin to
miss and then get nervous, and that was what happened to the Colonel.
Continually there came distant cries of "/Mark! mark over!/" followed
by the apparition of half-a-dozen brown balls showing clearly against
the grey autumn sky and sweeping down towards him like lightning.
/Whizz/ in front, overhead and behind; bang, bang; bang again with the
second gun, and they were away--vanished, gone, leaving nothing but a
memory behind them.
The Colonel swore beneath his breath, and Ida kneeling at his side,
sighed audibly; but it was of no use, and presently the drive was
done, and there he was with one wretched French partridge to show for
it.
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