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This seemed somewhat to stimulate the beaters and the old elephant. The coolies redoubled their cries, smote among the reeds with their heavy staves, and shouted encouragement to each other. Right in the middle of the line, as it seemed to us from the outside, there was then a fierce roar and a mighty commotion.
"Did you go away?" "I came back a few days ago only." "Had you any shooting?" Tommy smiled. He had never "had any shooting" except once in his boyhood, when he and Corp acted as beaters, and he had wept passionately over the first bird killed, and harangued the murderer. "No," he replied; "I was at work all the time."
Edwards and his cavalcade were approaching the horseshoe, the cordon seemed perfect, though scattering, when the first faint sound of the beaters was heard, and the next moment the barking of two hundred six-shooters was reëchoing up and down the valley of the Salt Fork.
'Look here, he answers, 'you've come right up the line between the guns and the beaters. 'Oh, that's all right, she says, gaily. 'I know your father doesn't allow shooting at ground game into cover. 'Lunch is to be up at the Hill Farm. 'Oh, that's the very thing. I want a long walk. And I will help Higgins to have everything ready for you. 'It will be very rough and tumble.
In the middle, lengthwise, was placed a long, narrow excavated log, longer than the bridge itself, for the use of the beaters. In the evening a large tree crashed to earth not far from my camp, and at a later hour another, still nearer, thunderously broke with its fall the silence of night.
As for letting the beast escape from the line of beaters, as for the two young gentlemen’s not holding their ground before the beast as they ought, though they had a pike in their hands, that no one can either praise or blame: for to retreat with one’s gun loaded was, according to our old ideas, to be a coward of cowards; likewise to shoot blindly, as many do, without letting the beast come close or sighting at it, is a shameful thing; but whoever aims well, whoever lets the beast come near him as is proper, even if he misses, may retire without shame; or he may fight with the pike, but at his own pleasure and not from compulsion; since the pike is put in a sportsman’s hands not for attack but for defence alone.
Having, therefore, instructed their servants in everything they were to do, six days afterwards they took him out to hunt, with as great a retinue of huntsmen and beaters as a crowned king.
The beaters entered the plantations in a row, standing close together, and moved one step at a time, each step sending out perhaps a dozen pheasants, who were, as a rule, quickly disposed of by the guns around.
If thou hadst abode in the jungle, never would the Seneschal have learned of thee; but, whether the fragrance of the honeycomb lured thee, or thou feltest too great a longing for ripe oats, thou earnest out to the edge of the forest, where the trees were less dense, and there at once the forester detected thy presence, and at once sent forth beaters, clever spies, to learn where thou wast feeding and where thou hadst thy lair by night.
The last covert had been shot, and as Marsham and his party, followed by scattered groups of beaters, turned homeward over the few fields that separated them from the park, figures appeared coming toward them in the rosy dusk Mr. Ferrier and Diana in front, with most of the other guests of the house in their train.
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