Chapter 7 - Page 2

rook-
shooting before breakfast. He's a very good shot, ain't he?'

'I've heard him say he's 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.

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

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
unnecessary; for the incessant cawing of the unconscious rooks
sufficiently indicated their whereabouts.

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

'Here they are,' said Mr. Pickwick; and, as he spoke, the
forms of 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.

'Come along,' shouted the old gentleman, 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 these 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 attached
to the soil to earn a precarious and hazardous subsistence by
making marks of themselves for inexperienced sportsmen.
'Only to start the game,' replied Mr. Wardle, laughing.

'To what?' inquired Mr. Pickwick.

'Why, in plain English, to frighten the rooks.'

'Oh, is that all?'

'You are satisfied?'

'Quite.'

'Very well. Shall I begin?'

'If you please,' said Mr. Winkle, glad of any respite.

'Stand aside, then. Now for it.'

The boy shouted, and shook a branch with a nest on it. Half a