waiting very carelessly, being now a little
desperate, at the entrance to the glen, instead of watching through my
sight-hole, as the proper practice was. Suddenly a ball went by me, with
a whizz and whistle, passing through my hat and sweeping it away all
folded up. My soft hat fluttered far down the stream, before I had time
to go after it, and with the help of both wind and water, was fifty
yards gone in a moment. At this I had just enough mind left to shrink
back very suddenly, and lurk very still and closely; for I knew what
a narrow escape it had been, as I heard the bullet, hard set by the
powder, sing mournfully down the chasm, like a drone banished out of the
hive. And as I peered through my little cranny, I saw a wreath of smoke
still floating where the thickness was of the withy-bed; and presently
Carver Doone came forth, having stopped to reload his piece perhaps, and
ran very swiftly to the entrance to see what he had shot.

Sore trouble had I to keep close quarters, from the slipperiness of the
stone beneath me with the water sliding over it. My foe came quite to
the verge of the fall, where the river began to comb over; and there he
stopped for a minute or two, on the utmost edge of dry land, upon the
very spot indeed where I had fallen senseless when I clomb it in my
boyhood. I could hear him breathing hard and grunting, as in doubt and
discontent, for he stood within a yard of me, and I kept my right
fist ready for him, if he should discover me. Then at the foot of the
waterslide, my black hat suddenly appeared, tossing in white foam, and
fluttering like a raven wounded. Now I had doubted which hat to take,
when I left home that day; till I thought that the black became me best,
and might seem kinder to Lorna.

"Have I killed thee, old bird, at last?" my enemy cried in triumph;
"'tis the third time I have shot at thee, and thou wast beginning to
mock me. No more of thy cursed croaking now, to wake me in the morning.
Ha, ha! there are not many who get three chances from Carver Doone; and
none ever go beyond it."

I laughed within myself at this, as he strode away in his triumph; for
was not this his third chance of me, and he no whit the wiser? And then
I thought that perhaps the chance might some day be on the other side.

For to tell the truth, I was heartily tired of lurking and playing
bo-peep so long; to which nothing could have reconciled me, except
my fear for Lorna. And here I saw was a man o