ifle there was a general commotion among
the servants, black and white, for by this time the whole retinue of
the establishment, including ostler, footman, butler, field hands and
housemaids, had collected to see the sport. The principal actor, being
self-absorbed as well as near-sighted, was scarcely aware of the
tittering assemblage. Abstracted from every other thought, he fixed
his attention on the great business in hand, not without misgiving and
nervous agitation. When he lifted the rifle to his shoulder, and,
trembling with excitement, pointed it in the manner he conceived to be
proper, Peter Taylor, stationed at his master's back as prompter and
artillerist, gave directions: "Now, sir, cool and steady! 'Old her
level! Not so 'igh, Mr. Blennerhassett. There! So! 'Old on! 'Old on! A
leetle more up! Ready! Fire!"

In agitation, the gentleman drew the trigger, and the next instant a
pane of window-glass, fully six feet from the outmost rim of Mr.
Byle's straw hat, was shivered to pieces, and the fragments were heard
to tinkle as they fell within the barn. The chagrin of the mortified
rifleman was cunningly abated by Peter's declaring that he himself was
at fault in confining his master's attention to vertical rather than
to horizontal considerations; but while he thus explained away the
failure, he winked at the other servants and whispered aside to
Plutarch that, though horticulture was his profession, he was a better
shot than his distinguished employer.

"That's claiming a good deal, isn't it?" replied Byle, following with
his eye the humiliated subject of their comment, who, conscious that
he had made himself ridiculous, withdrew from the scene and tried to
recover lost dignity by retiring with his guest to the privacy of his
library. There, rallying his spirits, he dilated upon law, science and
_belles-lettres_, oblivious of the fact that his commonplace remarks
were tedious to a lively mind. He was opinionated, though not
egotistical; revered authority, took himself seriously, and was a hero
worshipper lacking humor and imagination. Pedantically conscious of
imparting his stored wisdom to the attentive listener, whom he desired
to entertain, he glowed with ingenuous enthusiasm while he commented,
in mildly magisterial fashion, on books and authors. He read aloud
extracts from "Shaftsbury's Characteristics," nodding approval of the
dullest sentences. Then he opened a large new folio, illustrated with
allegoric