consequence was a few days of utter humiliation and weariness, after which Archie became painfully capable of shooting within a few yards of the bird, and once actually brought down a rabbit, to his great exultation yet remorse. Poor rabbit, what had it done to have its freedom and its life thus cut short? But the lad durst no more express this sentiment than he durst say that he had never fired a gun in his life before that terrible Twelfth when he went out for the first time on the hillside and barked his unaccustomed shins, and made his arms ache and his head swim with the fatiguing, sickening, hopeless day. Rowland had been warned that there was no game to be had which would justify him in inviting company. “Me and the young gentleman--twa guns--we will want nae mair--just enough to keep up a bit supply for the hoose,” Roderick said, with a twinkle in his eye. And as Archie made no protest, his father thought that somehow or other the boy who had never had anything to do all his life must know how to manage his gun. There were some ideas of going out to the hill with luncheon, which Evelyn, however, seeing the terror and despair at once in the lad’s eyes, discouraged. “No,” she said, “men only pretend to like it when there’s a party: they never like it when they mean serious work.” “Do you ever desire work, Archie?” said his father, “Come in with a good bag, there’s a good fellow.” “If I might speak a word, sir,” said Roderick, “the finest fallow in the world will no bring up a cheeper if there’s nane to come.” “Well, well, start early, and good luck to you,” said Rowland. And they all came out to meet the pair returning in the afternoon, Archie more dead than alive, with his hands blistered and his shins scratched, and the look of absolute exhaustion on his face, but somehow with a bird or two in his bag which he was not conscious of, still less of how they got there. “Ou ay, there’s aye a hare or twa,” said the gamekeeper; “but it was very warm on the hill, and Mr. Archibald is not used to the work, as few gentlemen are the first day. I’ll take your gun, sir, and I’ll take your bag, and the ladies will give ye a lift hame.” Archie obeyed, and clambered into the carriage, the most dilapidated sportsman, perhaps, that the evening of the twelfth ever saw. “Well, sir, had ye good sport?” said his father, feeling a glow of pride in the performances of the boy. “Oh, I don’t know if you call that good sport,” the lad said with a gasp.