about midday
So the days passed , and I practised , every evening finding me a little better at this terribly difficult sport . For always I learned more as to the exact capacities of my rifle and the allowance that must be made according to the speed of the bird , its distance , and the complications of the wind and of the light . During those days , also , I recovered so rapidly that at the end of them I was almost in my normal condition , and could walk well with the aid of a single stick . At length the eventful Thursday came , and about midday -- for I lay in bed late that morning and did not shoot -- I drove , or , rather , was driven , in a Cape cart with two horses to the place known as Groote Kloof or Great Gully . Over this gorge the wild geese flighted from their `` pans '' or feeding grounds on the high lands above , to other pans that lay some miles below , and thence , I suppose , straight out to the sea coast , whence they returned at dawn . On arriving at the mouth of Groote Kloof about four o'clock in the afternoon , my father and I were astonished to see a great number of Boers assembled there , and among them a certain sprinkling of their younger womankind , who had come on horseback or in carts . `` Good gracious ! ''