On the following day--the month being August, or something very near it, in the year 1812 (a year behind the time we got on to)--Mr. Hales, to keep his hand in, took his favourite flint-gun down, and patted it, and reprimed it. He had finished his dinner, it had been a good one; and his partner in life had been lamenting the terrible price of butcher’s meat. She did not see how it could end in anything short of a wicked rebellion, when the price of bread was put with it. And the Rector had answered, with a wink to Cecil, “Order no meat for to-morrow, my dear, nor even for the next day. We shall see what we shall see.” With this power of promise, he got on his legs, and stopped all who were fain to come after him. He knew every coney and coney’s hole on the glebe, and on the clerk’s land; and they all would now be out at grass, and must be treated gingerly. He was going to shoot for the pot, as sportsmen generally did in those days. With visions of milky onions, about to be poured on a broad and well-boiled back, the Rector (after sneaking through a furzy gate) peeped down a brown trench of the steep hill-side; here he spied three little sandy juts of Recent excavation, and on each of them sat a hunch-backed coney, proud of the labours of the day, and happily curling his whiskers. The Rector, peering downward, saw the bulging over their large black eyes, and the prick of their delicate ears, and their gentle chewing of the grass-blade. There was no chance of a running shot, for they would pop into earth in a moment; so he tried to get two of them into a line, and then he pulled his trigger. The nearest rabbit fell dead as a stone; but the Rector could scarcely believe his eyes, when through the curls of the smoke he beheld, instead of the other rabbit, a ragged boy rolling, and kicking, and holloaing! “Am I never to shoot without shooting a boy?” cried the parson, rushing forward. “Another guinea! A likely thing! I vow I will only pay a shilling this time. The sport would ruin a bishop!” But Mr. Hales found to his great delight that the boy was not touched by a shot, nor even made pretence to be so. He had craftily crept through the bushes from below, and quietly lurked near the rabbit’s hole, and after the shot, had darted forth, and thrown himself cleverly on the wounded rabbit, who otherwise must have got away to die a lingering death in his burrow. The quickness and skill of the boy, and the luck of thus bagging both rabbits, so pleased the Rector that he gave him sixpence, and bade him follow, to carry the game and to see more sport. Bonny had a natural turn for sport, which never could be beaten out of him, and to get it encouraged by the rector of the parish was indeed a godsend. And in his excitement at every shot, he poured forth his heart about rabbits, and hares, and wood-queests, and partridges, and even pheasants.