It was an extraordinarily high pheasant, flushed, I think, outside the
covert by a stop, so high that, as it travelled down the line, although
three guns fired at it, including Van Koop, none of them seemed to touch
it. Then I fired, and remembering Lord Ragnall's advice, far in front.
Its flight changed. Still it travelled through the air, but with the
momentum of a stone to fall fifty yards to my right, dead.

"That's better!" said Scroope, while Charles grinned all over his round
face, muttering:

"Wiped his eye that time."

This shot seemed to give me confidence, and I improved considerably,
though, oddly enough, I found that it was the high and difficult
pheasants which I killed and the easy ones that I was apt to muff. But
Van Koop, who was certainly a finished artist, killed both.

At the next stand Lord Ragnall, who had been observing my somewhat
indifferent performance, asked me to stand back with him behind the
other guns.

"I see the tall ones are your line, Mr. Quatermain," he said, "and you
will get some here."

On this occasion we were placed in a dip between two long coverts which
lay about three hundred yards apart. That which was being beaten proved
full of pheasants, and the shooting of those picked guns was really a
thing to see. I did quite well here, nearly, but not altogether, as well
as Lord Ragnall himself, though that is saying a great deal, for he was