A spirt of smoke spouts upward, some brown feathers puff out in the air, and with closed wings the beautiful bird falls within some thirty yards of its killer.
Though the shooting was most successful, other coverts than the King's Wood were tried, some of which gave pheasants, others rabbits and hares, till fairly good bags were made; and so the sportsmen shot down the side of a remote spur of the Ochil hills--save the banging of the guns no other sounds being heard but the beating of sticks against trees or whin bushes, and the voices of Gavin and the beaters shouting, 'Mark cock,' ''Ware hen,' 'Hare forward,' and so on, till a dark dell was reached--a regular zeriba (Roland called it) of bracken, briars, and gorse--where luncheon was to meet the party--one of the not least pleasant features of a day's shooting; but the sportsmen had become so intent on their work that they now realized fully for the first time that the day had become overcast; masses of dark gathered cloud had enveloped the sun; that dense gray mist was rolling along the upper slopes of the hills, and in the distant direction of Earlshaugh, the dark and blurred horizon showed that rain was pouring aslant, and so heavily that Maude and Hester, who had promised to bring the viands in the pony phaeton, would not dream of leaving the shelter of the house.
'Homeward' was now the word, but not before the last beat of the day--reserved as a _bonne bouche_--was made, though noon was past and gloom was gathering speedily.
At the upper end of a little glen a long belt of firs bounded a field beyond which rose another belt, and in the field the guns were posted, while the pheasants could be seen making for the head of the wood.
Nearer and more near came the tapping of the beaters' rods, until one gallant bird rose at the edge and was knocked over by Roland, who was far away on the extreme right of the line. The tapping went gently on lest too many birds should be put up at once. Some rapid firing followed--all the more rapidly that the mist and rain were coming down the hill-slopes together.
In quick succession the birds left the covert, some flying to one flank, some to the other, while others rose high in the air, and some remained grovelling amid the undergrowth, never to leave it alive.