No sooner said than done. Out I jumped, gun in hand, and walked forward briskly, with both my barrels cocked. I had not in those days attained the cool quickness which enables the sure finger to cock the piece, as it rises to the eye, without delay or hesitancy. Up they jumped, just as I had been warned, two couple close under my nose. Bang, went my first barrel, harmless, discharged before the bird was ten paces distant from the muzzle. _Skeap! skeap!_—away they went, twisting and zigzaging their way up wind, as wild as hawks; but I had rallied already, and fired my second barrel coolly, and with better luck than I had deserved by my first miss. The bird I shot at was keeled over clean, and quite dead, riddled by the mustard-seed at the true distance—it must have gone like a single ball at the first snipe—and, to my great astonishment, another, which, unseen at the moment when I pulled the trigger, was crossing the same line at some twelve yards further, went down wing-tipped. That was the first and last time that I ever have killed myself or seen killed by another, two English snipe at one shot. Well pleased, I jumped again into our dog-cart; and away we rattled five miles further to Dry Water, a large broad brook, along the banks of which is the best shooting in that district, and there, upon the bridge, we found awaiting us, with his fourteen foot jumping-pole, and his capacious game-bag, Jem Carter, the best guide and pole-man of the fens, surnamed _the clean, lucus à non lucendo_, from his exceeding filthiness, together with his brother, a smart, wicked urchin of sixteen. To the guidance of the latter we entrusted the gray cob, to be driven to the Rutland Arms, at Bottisham, and there installed at rack and manger, to await our coming. To the guidance of the former, thorough mud and thorough mire, we committed ourselves. I remember, as I said before, every turn and winding of that long, weary walk, every tussock over which we stumbled, every quagmire in which we stuck fast, every broad dyke into which, jumping short, we blundered; but these things would have small attraction to my readers. Much game we did not kill that day, assuredly; but we have killed _some_ since, _sarten_! as Tom Draw says. And for the rest, it is neither for the shooting performed, nor for the miles traversed, but for the memory, never to be forgotten, of old friendship interrupted, and good fellowship ended forever, that I still cherish, and hold dear, in a deep angle of my heart, the recollection of “my first day’s snipe shooting at Cambridge.” * * * * * WHEN EYES ARE BEAMING; OR THE FAREWELL SONG, WRITTEN BY HEBER, AND RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO _MISS M. BARRY_, BY M. KELLER.