He penetrated into the depths of the wood, firing at everything that happened to be a trifle larger than a butterfly or humble bee; but although Mortimer thought he took steady aim at the several little feathered songsters against whom he had murder in his heart, the gun, which was something like the Irishman's that could "shoot round a corner," never brought down anything. At length he came to a dense thicket, just on the borders of the little open glade where Tom and Lizzie were about to meet. A particularly fine fat thrush hopped on a twig in the midst of the thicket; and, as it was only about a yard from the muzzle of his gun, the young imp was more successful this time. He fired and brought down his bird; but he also brought down something else which he had not bargained for. Tom was just advancing with outstretched hand towards Lizzie, glad of the opportunity for which he had been longing all day. Whiz! bang! more than half the charge of the young imp's shot struck him in the side, and Tom fell nearly senseless at Lizzie's feet. She, forgetting all her reserve, bent over him in an agony of terror. "Oh! Tom, Tom!" she cried, as she knelt down by his side, their faces nearly touching, and her hair sweeping across his cheek. "They have killed you! They have killed you!" And the sun still shone down, and the fleecy clouds still sailed overhead, and the summer breeze rippled through the trees. "Lizzie, my darling! I'm so happy: I wish I could die now," murmured Tom, in disconnected fragments, and he fainted away outright. "Oh! he's dead! He's dead!" cried Lizzie, out aloud, wringing her hands, bursting into an agony of tears--tears, idle tears! "Bless my soul!" said the doctor, bursting through the bushes, as he arrived very opportunely on the scene of action, out of breath with the haste he had made. "Bless my soul! Who's dead, what's dead? It's all confounded nonsense," he continued, excitedly, bending down over Tom, and tearing open his coat and shirt, and feeling his heart. "Bless my soul! He's no more dead than you are, my dear! The man's only fainted." Volume 1, Chapter XV. END OF "FIRST ACT."