After this he never took me out shooting with him again; and, indeed, I
had discovered to my discomfiture that I, the friend and admirer and
would-be emulator of Natty Bumppo the Deerslayer, I, the familiar of the
last of the Mohicans and his scalp-lifting father, could not bear the
sight of blood--least of all, of blood shed by myself, and for my own
amusement.

The only beast that ever fell to my gun during those shootings with
Uncle Ibbetson was a young rabbit, and that more by accident than
design, although I did not tell Uncle Ibbetson so.

As I picked it off the ground, and felt its poor little warm narrow
chest, and the last beats of its heart under its weak ribs, and saw the
blood on its fur, I was smitten with pity, shame, and remorse; and
settled with myself that I would find some other road to English
gentlemanhood than the slaying of innocent wild things whose happy life
seems so well worth living.

[Illustration: "'AIL TO THEE BLYTHE SPERRIT!"]

I must eat them, I suppose, but I would never shoot them any more; my
hands, at least, should be clean of blood henceforward.

Alas, the irony of fate!

The upshot of all this was that he confided to Mrs. Deane the task of
licking his cub of a nephew into shape. She took me in hand with right
good-will, began by teaching me how to dance, that I might dance with
her at the coming hunt ball; and I did so nearly all night, to my
infinite joy and triumph, and to the disgust of Colonel Ibbetson, who