“Do you know, Moseley,” said Jarvis, who began to think he was a favorite with John, now that he was admitted to his menus plaisirs, “that I have taken it into my head this Mr. Denbigh was very happy to plead his morals for not meeting me.  He is a soldier, but I cannot find out what battles he has been in.”

“Captain Jarvis,” said John, coolly, “the less you say about that business the better.  Call in Rover.”

Now, another of Jarvis’s recommendations was a set of lungs that might have been heard half a mile with great ease on a still morning.

“Why,” said Jarvis, rather humbly, “I am sensible, Mr Moseley, I was very wrong as regards your sister; but don’t you think it a little odd in a soldier not to fight when properly called upon?”

“I suppose Mr. Denbigh did not think himself properly called upon, or perhaps he had heard what a great shot you were.”

Six months before his appearance in B——­, Captain Jarvis had been a clerk in the counting-room of Jarvis, Baxter & Co., and had never held fire-arms of any kind in his hand, with the exception of an old blunderbuss, which had been a kind of sentinel over the iron chest for years.  On mounting the cockade, he hail taken up shooting as a martial exercise, inasmuch as the burning of gunpowder was an attendant of the recreation.  He had never killed but one bird in his life, and that, was an owl, of which he took the advantage of daylight and his stocking feet to knock off a tree in the deanery grounds, very early after his arrival.  In his trials with John, he sometimes pulled trigger at the same moment with his companion; and as the bird generally fell, he thought he had an equal claim to the honor.  He was fond of warring with crows and birds of the larger sort, and invariably went provided with small balls fitted to the bore of his fowling-piece for such accidental rencontres.  He had another habit, which was not a little annoying to John, who had several times tried in vain to break him of it—­that of shooting at marks.  If birds were not plenty, he would throw up a chip, and sometimes his hat, by way of shooting on the wing.

As the clay was excessively hot, and the game kept close, John felt willing to return from such unprofitable labor.  The captain now commenced his chip firing, which in a few minutes was succeeded by his hat.

“See, Moseley, see; I have hit the band,” cried the captain, delighted to find he had at last wounded his old antagonist.  “I don’t think you can beat that yourself.”

“I am not sure I can,” said John, slipping a handful of gravel in the muzzle of his piece slily, “but I can do, as you did—­try.”

“Do,” cried the captain, pleased to get his companion down to his own level of amusements.  “Are you ready?”

“Yes; throw.”

Jarvis threw, and John fired:  the hat fairly bounced.

“Have I hit it?” asked John, while reloading the barrel he had discharged.