style="font-size:15px;"> "We'll shoot, to-day, Geoff, as we settled," said Harry. "Uncle Francis will come with us. Wake up, you pig."
Geoffrey yawned.
"How's the Luck?" he said. "Lord! I had such a nightmare, Harry! You, and the Luck, and Mr. Vail, and the picture of the wicked baron all mixed up together somehow. I forget how it went."
"Very remarkable!" said Harry. "I dreamed of the Luck, too, now you mention it. We must have dreamed the same thing, Geoff, because I also have forgotten how it went."
"And I," said Mr. Francis, "dreamed about nothing at all, very pleasantly, all night. And what a morning I awoke to! Just the day for a good tramp in the woods. Dear me, Harry, what a simpleton your dear father used to think me! 'What are you going to do?' he would ask me, and I would only want a pocketful of cartridges, a snack of cold lunch, and leave to prowl about by myself without a keeper, no trouble to anybody."
"Yes, that's good fun," said Geoffrey. "Now it's a rabbit, or over the stubble a partridge. Then a bit of cover, and you put up a pheasant. Let's have a go-as-you-please day, Harry."
"The poetry of shooting," said Mr. Francis. "Cold partridge for any one but me? No? You lads have no appetites!"
The keeper had been given his orders the day before, and very soon after breakfast the three shooters were ready to start. They went out by a garden door which gave on a flight of some dozen stone steps leading to the lawn; Mr. Francis, leading the way, nearly fell on the topmost of them, for they were masked with ice, and half turned as he recovered himself, to give a word of warning to the others. But he was too late, and Harry, who followed him, not looking to his feet, but speaking to Geoffrey over his shoulder at the same moment almost, had slipped on the treacherous stone and fallen sprawling, dropping his gun, and clutching ineffectually at the railing to save himself. Mr. Francis gave one exclamation of startled dismay, and ran to his assistance.
"My dear fellow," he cried, "I hope you are not hurt?"
Harry lay still a moment, his mouth twisted with pain; then, taking hold of the railing, pulled himself to his feet, and stood with bowed head, gripping hard on the banister.
"All sideways on my ankle," he said.—"Just see if my gun's all right, Geoff.—Yes, I've twisted it, I'm afraid." He paused another moment, faint and dizzy, with a feeling of empty sickness, and then hobbled up the steps again.
"An awful wrench," he said. "Just give me your arm, Uncle Francis, will you? I can hardly put my foot to the ground."
Leaning on him, he limped back into the hall and dragged off his boot.
"Yes, it feels pretty bad," he said; "I came with my whole weight on to it. I shall be as lame as a tree."
Mr. Francis was on his knees, and in a moment had stripped off Harry's stocking with quick, deft fingers.
"What bad luck! what awfully bad luck!" he said. "Put a cold-water compress on it at once, my dear boy. It is already swelling!"
Harry lifted his leg on to a chair opposite.
"It's just a sprain," he said. "Go out, Uncle Francis, you and Geoffrey. I'll put a bandage on."
Templeton had answered Mr. Francis's ringing of the bell, and was dismissed again with orders for cold water and linen.
"Not till I have seen you comfortable, my dear fellow," said Mr. Francis. "Dear me, what bad luck! Does it hurt you, Harry?"
"No, no, it is nothing," said the boy rather impatiently, irritated both by the pain and the fussing. "Do go out, Uncle Francis, with Geoffrey, and leave me. The men are waiting by the home cover. I can look after myself perfectly."
Mr. Francis still seemed half loath to leave him, and, had he followed his inclinations, he would have instituted himself as sick-nurse, to change the bandage or read to him. But it was the part of wisdom to humour the patient, who quite distinctly wished to be left alone; and as even the most solicitous affection could not find grounds for anxiety in the sprain, with a few more sympathetic words, he followed Geoffrey, who was chafing to be gone. The latter, indeed, might have appeared somewhat cold and unsympathetic in contrast with Mr. Francis and his repeated lamentations; but his "Bad luck, Harry!" and Harry's grunt in reply, had something of telegraphic brevity, not misunderstood.
In spite of his protestations that he was no more than an indifferent shot, it soon appeared that Mr. Francis was more than a decently capable performer with the gun, and his keenness and accuracy as a sportsman were charmingly combined with the knowledge and observation of a naturalist. He pointed out to his companion several rare and infrequent birds which they saw during the morning, and implored the keeper that they might not be shot for curiosities.
"Half the time I am shooting," he said to Geoffrey, "I am of a divided mind. Is it not a shame to kill these beautiful and innocent things? I often wonder—ah!" up went his gun, and a high pheasant was torn from the sky, leaving a few light neck feathers floating there.
"And even while the words are in my mouth, I go and contradict my sentiments," he said, ejecting the smoking cartridge. "What a bundle of incongruous opposites is a man!"
They shot for not more than a couple of hours after lunch, for the sun set early, and Mr. Francis confessed to a certain unreasonable desire to get home quickly and see how Harry had fared.
"Indeed, I was half minded to stay with him in spite of his wish," he said, "for the hours will have been lonely to him. But he is like all the Vails—self-reliant, and beholden to no one."
They were crossing the last meadow before they should again reach the garden, and, even as he spoke, a hare got up from its form in the tussocky grass not more than ten yards from them and scuttled noiselessly, head down, across the field. Geoffrey had already taken the cartridges from his barrel, and Mr. Francis raised his gun to his shoulder, hesitated a moment, and then fired. He hit the beast just as it gained the fence of the cover from which they had come; they saw it bowled over, and drag on a pace or two into cover; then suddenly, from where it had disappeared, there came a screaming horribly human. Mr. Francis paused, then turned quite pale, and Geoffrey, seeing his stricken face, imagined he thought that he had wounded a beater.
"It is only the hare," he said; "the men were all out two minutes ago."
Mr. Francis turned to him.
"Only the hare!" he cried; "yes, only the hare! How dreadful, how dreadful! I have wounded it," and he started off running to where the beast had been last seen, and disappeared in the cover.
Geoffrey sent a couple of beaters to assist in the search, but himself went on to the house, wondering a little at the inconsistency which would allow a man to shoot at a hare running straight away in a bad light, and yet send him hot foot after it when wounded. Yet the inconsistency was pleasing; keenness was responsible for the doubtful shot, an indubitable horror of causing an animal pain prompted the pursuit of it. He found Harry lying up, his ankle somewhat severely sprained, but it no longer pained him, and he asked after his uncle.
"Just at the last moment he shot a hare, wounding it," he said, "and ran back to try to recover it. He will be in at once, I should think."
But half an hour passed, yet still he did not come, and Harry was already wondering what could have happened, when he appeared, all smiles again.
"Dear
