On the following morning Scroope and I arrived at Castle Ragnall at or about a quarter to ten.  On our way we stopped to pick up my three hundred and fifty cartridges.  I had to pay something over three solid sovereigns for them, as in those days such things were dear, which showed me that I was not going to get my lesson in English pheasant shooting for nothing.  The gunsmith, however, to whom Scroope gave a lift in his cart to the castle, impressed upon me that they were dirt cheap, since he and his assistant had sat up most of the night loading them with my special No. 3 shot.

As I climbed out of the vehicle a splendid-looking and portly person, arrayed in a velvet coat and a scarlet waistcoat, approached with the air of an emperor, followed by an individual in whom I recognized Charles, carrying a gun under each arm.

“That’s the head-keeper,” whispered Scroope; “mind you treat him respectfully.”

Much alarmed, I took off my hat and waited.

“Do I speak to Mr. Allan Quatermain?” said his majesty in a deep and rumbling voice, surveying me the while with a cold and disapproving eye.

I intimated that he did.

“Then, sir,” he went on, pausing a little at the “sir,” as though he suspected me of being no more than an African colleague of his own, “I have been ordered by his lordship to bring you these guns, and I hope, sir, that you will be careful of them, as they are here on sale or return.  Charles, explain the working of them there guns to this foreign gentleman, and in doing so keep the muzzles up or down.  They ain’t loaded, it’s true, but the example is always useful.”

“Thank you, Mr. Keeper,” I replied, growing somewhat nettled, “but I think that I am already acquainted with most that there is to learn about guns.”

“I am glad to hear it, sir,” said his majesty with evident disbelief.  “Charles, I understand that Squire Scroope is going to load for the gentleman, which I hope he knows how to do with safety.  His lordship’s orders are that you accompany them and carry the cartridges.  And, Charles, you will please keep count of the number fired and what is killed dead, not reckoning runners.  I’m sick of them stories of runners.”

These directions were given in a portentous stage aside which we were not supposed to hear.  They caused Scroope to snigger and Charles to grin, but in me they raised a feeling of indignation.

I took one of the guns and looked at it.  It was a costly and beautifully made weapon of the period, with an under-lever action.

“There’s nothing wrong with the gun, sir,” rumbled Red Waistcoat.  “If you hold it straight it will do the rest.  But keep the muzzle up, sir, keep it up, for I know what the bore is without studying the same with my eye.  Also perhaps you won’t take it amiss if I tell you that here at Ragnall we hates a low pheasant.  I mention it because the last gentleman who came from foreign parts—­he was French, he was—­shot nothing all day but one hen bird sitting just on the top of the brush, two beaters, his lordship’s hat, and a starling.”