I was perhaps a bit too tense and eager, although my health and
youth had never allowed me to be a victim of what is known as
nervousness. Our birds were to be flown by hand from behind a screen,
and my first bird started off a trifle low, but fast, and I knew I was
not on with the first barrel, the hang of Stevenson's gun being not
quite the same as my own. I killed it with the second, but it struggled
over the tape.
"Lost bird!" called out Judge Reeves sharply and distinctly; and it was
evident that now he would be as decisive as he had hitherto been
deliberate.
Under the etiquette of the game no comment was made on my mishap, and my
second, Stevenson, did not make the mistake of commiserating me. No one
spoke a word as Orme stepped to the score. He killed his bird as clean
as though he had done nothing else all his life, and indeed, I think he
was half turned about from the score before the bird was down. "Dead
bird!" called the referee, with jaw closing like a steel trap.
Stevenson whispered to me this time. "Get full on with your first," he
said. "They're lead-packers--old ones, every one, and a picked lot."
I was a trifle angry with myself by this time, but it only left me well
keyed.
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