Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/105

63 I

THE PICKWICK CLUB. 63

Glad to see you up so early. Make haste down, and come out. I'll wait for you here."

Mr. Pickwick needed no second invitation. Ten minutes suffice<l for the completion of his toilet, and Ht the expiration of that time he was by the old gentleman's side.

" Hallo!" said Mr. Pickwick in his turn: seeing^ that his companion was armed with a gun, and that another lay ready on the grass. " What's going forward ? "

" Why, your friend and I," replied the host, " are going out rook- shooting before breakfast. He 's a very good shot ain't he? "

" I've heard him say he 'a a capital one," replied Mr. Pickwick ; " but I never saw him aim at anything."

" Well," said the host, " I wish he'd come. Joe — Joe."

The fat boy, who under the exciting influence of the morning did not appear to be more than three parts and a fraction asleep, emerged from the house.

Mr. Pickwick in the rookery. Show the gentleman the way there ; d'ye hear? "
 * Go up, and call the gentleman, and tell him he '11 find me and

The boy departed to execute his commission ; and the host, carrying both guns like a second Robinson Crusoe, led the way from the garden.

" This is the place," said the old gentleman, pausing after a few minutes walking, in an avenue of trees. The information was unneces- sary ; for the incessant cawing of the unconscious rooks, sufficiently indicated their whereabout.

The old gentleman laid one gun on the ground, and loaded the other.

Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass, and Mr. Winkle appeared in the distance. The fat boy, not being quite certain which gentleman he was directed to call, had with peculiar sagacity, and to prevent the possibility of any mistake, called them all.
 * Here they are," said Mr. Pickwick ; and as he spoke, the forms of

" Come along," shouted the old gentlemen, addressing Mr. Winkle ; " a keen hand like you ought to have been up long ago, even to such poor work as this."

Mr. Winkle responded with a forced smile, and took up the spare gun with an expression of countenance which a metaphysical rook, impressed with a foreboding of his approaching death by violence, may be supposed to assume. It might have been keenness, but it looked remarkably like misery.

The old gentleman nodded ; and two ragged boys who had been marshalled to the spot under the direction of the infant Lambert, forthwith commenced climbing up two of the trees.

"What are those lads for?" inquired Mr. Pickwick abruptly. He was rather alarmed ; for he was not quite certain but that the distress of the agricultural interest, about which he had often heard a great deal, might have compelled the small boys, atttiehed to the soil, to earn a pre- carious and hazardous subsistence by making marks of themselves for inexperienced sportsmen.