LEGEND OF A MUSKET.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 386, 5 April 1871, Page 2

LEGEND OF A MUSKET.

Mauk Twain tells the following story, related by a fellow-passenger, who, being bantered about his timidity, said lie had never been scared since he loaded an old Queen Anne's musket for his father once, whereupon ho gave the following :— .

" You see, the old man was trying to learn me to shoot blackbird aud beasts that tore up the young corn and such things, so that I could be of some use about the farm, because I wasn't, big enough to do much. My gun was a single-barrelled shot gun, and Ihe old man carried an old Queen Anne musket that weighed a 100, made report like a thunder-clap, and kicked like a mule. The old man wanted me to shoot the musket sometimes, but I was afraid. One day, though, T got her down, and so I look her to the hired man, and asked him how to load her, because it was out in the field. " Hiram," said he, " do jou see those marks on the stock, an X and a V, on each side of the Queen's crown ? Well, that means ten balls and five slugs—that's her load."

"But how much powder."

"Oh," he says, "it don't mntler; put in three or four handful!."

" So I loaded her up that way, and it was an awful charge. I had sense enough to see that, and started. I levelled her on a good many blackbirds; but every time I went to pull the trigger I shut my eves and winked ; I was afraid of her kick. Towards sundown I fetched up at the house, and there was the old man resting on the verandah.

" Been out hunting, have ye ?" " Yes sir," says I.

" What did you kill ?"

"Didn't kill anything, sir—didn't shoot her off —wa3 afraid she would kick—(l knew blame well she would)."

" Gimmie that gun !" the old man said as

mad as sin,

And he took aim at a sapling on the other side of the road, and I began to drop back out of danger. And the next moment I heard the earthquake, and heard the Queen Anne whirling end over end in the air, and the old man spining around on the heel with one leg up and both hands on his jaw, and the bark flying from that old sapling like there was a hail storm. The old man's shoulder was set back three inches and his jaw turned black and blue, and he had to lay up for three days. Cholera nor nothing else can scavco me the way I was scared that lime.