them come right down the swale, and
drive him to the open--Harry and Forester, you two can ride your own
nags, and I'll take old Roan, and A--- here shall have the colt."

"Very well! Timothy, did they feed well to-night? if they did, give them
their oats very early, and no water. I know it's too bad after their
work to-day, but we shall not be out two hours!"

"Weel! it's no matter gin they were oot six," responded Timothy, "they
wadna be a pin the waur o't!"

"Take out my rifle, then--and pick some buckshot cartridges to fit the
bore of all the double guns. Frank's got his rifle; so you can take my
heavy single gun--your gauge is 17, A---, quite too small for buckshot;
mine is 11, and will do its work clean with Ely's cartridge and pretty
heavy powder, at eighty-five to ninety yards. Tom's bore is twelve, and
I've brought some to fit his old double, and some, too, for my own gun,
though it is almost too small!"

"What gauge is yours, Harry?"

"Fourteen; which I consider the very best bore possible for general
shooting. I think the gunsmiths are running headlong now into the
opposite of their old error--when they found that fifteens and fourteens
outshot vastly the old small calibres--fifty years since no guns were
larger than eighteen, and few than twenty; they are now quite out-doing
it. I have seen late-imported guns of seven pounds, and not above
twenty-six inches long, with eleven and even ten gauge calibres! you
might as well shoot with a blunderbus at once!"

"They would tell at cock in close summer covert," answered A---.

"For a man who can't cover his bird they might," replied Harry; "but you
may rely on it they lose three times as much in force as they gain in
the space they cover; at forty yards you could not kill even a woodcock
with them once in fifty times, and a quail, or English snipe, at that
distance never!"

"What do you think the right length and weight, then, for an eleven
bore?"

"Certainly not less than nine pounds, and thirty inches; but I would
prefer ten pounds and thirty-three inches; though, except for a fowl-gun
to use in boat-shooting, such a piece would be quite too ponderous and
clumsy. My single gun is eleven gauge, eight pounds and thirty-three
inches; and even with loose shot executes superbly; but with Ely's green
cartridge I have put forty BB shot into a square of two and a half feet
at one hundred and twenty-five yards; sharply enough, too, to imbed the
shot so firmly