The next morning Teddy and Dick were up before anybody else, and marched proudly about with their guns in their hands, and their game-bags slung across their shoulders, talking of all the game they were going to bring home.
“I say, Teddy,” said Dick, “when our game-bags are quite full, where _shall_ we put the rest of the game we shall shoot?”
[Illustration: “THE GENTLEMEN AND BOYS FORMED A BROAD LINE ACROSS THE FIELD.” P. 46.]
“That’s just what _I_ was wondering,” said Teddy. “I know, we’ll put Neddy’s panniers on, and take him with us.”
I didn’t like this at all, because I knew these young sportsmen would fire at everything they saw and would be quite as likely to shoot _me_ as they would a partridge. But there was no help for it, and so when the party assembled at the front door, I was there too, harnessed and ready.
“Bless me!” said Norman’s father, when, after a mile or two, he joined us with his son, “what’s that donkey for?”
“That’s to fetch home the young gentlemen’s game, sir,” said the keeper, touching his hat, with a grin.
The partridges rose in great numbers. I stayed prudently at the rear. The gentlemen and the boys formed a broad line across the field; shots resounded all along the line; the dogs pricked up their ears, watched to see where the game fell, and fetched it in. I kept an eye on those young boasters; I saw them shoot, and shoot, and shoot again, but they never hit anything, not even when the three of them aimed at the same partridge at once, for it only flew all the better. At the end of two hours the gentlemen’s game-bags were full, and those of the boys still empty.
“Dear me!” said one of the gentlemen, as they passed me on the way to a neighboring farmhouse, where they had left their dinner; “are the panniers still empty? Ah, I suppose you have stuffed _all_ your game into your game-bags. My dear boys, if you fill them so full, they’ll burst!” and the gentleman looked at the other sportsmen and laughed.
Dick, Teddy, and Norman got very red, but they said nothing, and presently they were all seated round a capital basket of provisions under a tree,—a chicken-pie, ham, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, and cake. The boys were ravenously hungry, and ate enough to frighten the people who passed by.