There was another gun and a ferret
in the house also, and he said that as soon as we got home he was
going to take me out fowling on rabbits.
A little later in the day we set off, and I nearly laughed to see
Michael's eagerness that I should turn out a good shot.
We put the ferret down in a crevice between two bare sheets of rock,
and waited. In a few minutes we heard rushing paws underneath us,
then a rabbit shot up straight into the air from the crevice at our
feet and set off for a wall that was a few feet away. I threw up the
gun and fired.
'Buail tu e,' screamed Michael at my elbow as he ran up the rock. I
had killed it.
We shot seven or eight more in the next hour, and Michael was
immensely pleased. If I had done badly I think I should have had to
leave the islands. The people would have despised me. A 'duine
uasal' who cannot shoot seems to these descendants of hunters a
fallen type who is worse than an apostate.
