load in it came from his hand, and I did not like to undo it. But I never found it kick very hard, when firmly set to the shoulder, unless it was badly loaded. In truth the thickness of the metal was enough almost to astonish one; and what our people said about it may have been true enough, although most of them are such liars—at least, I mean they make mistakes, as all mankind must do. Perchance it was no mistake at all, to say that this ancient gun had belonged to some noble Spaniard, the captain of a fine large ship in the " Invincible Armada," which we of England managed to conquer, with God and the weather helping us, a hundred years ago or more—I can't say to a month or so.
After a little while, when John had fired away at a rat the charge I held so sacred, it came to me as a natural thing to practise shooting with that great gun, instead of John Fry's blunderbuss, which looked like a bell with a stalk to it. Perhaps for a boy there is nothing better than a good windmill to shoot at, as I have seen them in flat countries; but we have no windmills upon the great moorland, yet here and there a few barn-doors, where shelter is, and a way up the hollows. And up those hollows you can shoot, with the help of the sides to lead your aim, and there is a fair chance of hitting the door, if you lay your cheek to the barrel, and try not to be afraid of it.
Gradually I won such skill, that I sent nearly all the lead gutter from the north porch of our little church through our best barn-door, a thing which has often repented me since, especially as churchwarden, and made me pardon many bad boys; but father was not buried on that side of the church.
But all this time, while I was roving over the hills, or about the farm, and even listening to John Fry, my mother, being so much older and feeling trouble longer, went about inside the house, or among the maids and fowls, not caring to talk to the best of them, except when she broke out sometimes about the good master they had lost, all, and every one of us. But the fowls would take no notice of it, except to cluck for barley; and the maidens, though they had liked him well, were thinking of their sweethearts, as the spring came on. Mother thought it wrong of them, selfish, and ungrateful; and yet sometimes she was proud that none had such call as herself to grieve for him. Only Annie seemed to go softly in and out, and cry, with nobody along of her, chiefly in the corner where the bees are, and the grindstone. But somehow she would never let anybody behold her; being set, as you may say, to think it over by herself, and season it with weeping. Many times I caught her, and many times she turned upon me; and then I could not look at her, but asked how long to dinner-time.
Now in the depth of the winter month, such as we call December, father being dead and quiet in his grave a fortnight, it happened me to be out of lowder, for practice against his enemies. I had never fired a shot without thinking, "This for father's murderer;" and John Fry said that I made such faces, it was a wonder the gun went off. But though I could hardly hold the
