'You mind you chaws the shot well, measter,' said the shepherd, 'afore
you loads th' gun. The more you chaws it the better it sticks
the-gither, an' the furder it kills um;' a theory of gunnery that which
was devoutly believed in in his time and long anticipated the wire
cartridges. And the old soldiers that used to come round to haymaking,
glad of a job to supplement their pensions, were very positive that if
you bit the bullet and indented it with your teeth, it was perfectly
fatal, no matter to what part of the body its billet took it.

In the midst of this talk as we moved on, I carrying the gun at the
trail with the muzzle downwards, the old ramrod, long disused and
shrunken, slipped half out; the end caught the ground, and it snapped
short off in a second. A terrible disaster this, turning everything to
bitterness: Orion was especially wroth, for it was his right next to
shoot. However, we went down to the smithy at the inn, to take counsel
of the blacksmith, a man of knowledge and a trusty friend. 'Aha!' said
he, 'it's not the first time I've made a ramrod. There's a piece of
lancewood in the store overhead which I keep on purpose; it's as tough
as a bow--they make carriage-shafts of it; you shall have a better rod
than was ever fitted to a Joe Manton.' So we took him down some pippins,
and he set to work on it that evening.





CHAPTER II