A MISFIRE.
I.
There is an undefinable character and distinctiveness about Sunday morning which is not possessed by any other day of the week.
Not that the remaining six are lacking in individuality. Monday is a depressed and reluctant individual; Tuesday is a full-blooded and energetic citizen; Wednesday a cheerful and contented gentleman who does not intend to overwork himself to-day,—this is probably due to the fact that we used to have a half-holiday on Wednesdays at school; and when I got into Parliament I found that the same rule held there; Thursday I regard as one who ploughs steadily on his way, lacking enthusiasm but comfortably conscious of a second wind; Friday is a debilitated but hopeful toiler, whose sole joy in his work lies in anticipating its speedy conclusion; and Saturday is a radiant fellow with a straw hat and a week-end bag.
Still, one week-day is very like another at waking time. My mental vision, never pellucid, is in its most opaque condition in the early grey of the morning; and at Oxford, I remember, I found it necessary to instruct my scout to rouse me from slumber in some such fashion as this: "Eight o'clock on Thursday mornin', sir!" (as if I had slept since Monday at least), or "'Alf-past nine, slight rain, and a Toosday, sir!"
However, no one was ever yet needed to inform me that it was Sunday morning. This is perhaps natural enough in town, where the silence of the streets and the sound of bells proclaim the day; but why the same phenomenon should occur in the middle of a Highland moor, where every day is one glorious open-air Sabbath, passes my comprehension.
I discussed the problem after breakfast as I sat and smoked my pipe in the heathery garden of Strathmyrtle, a shooting-lodge at which we were being hospitably entertained by Kitty's uncle, Sir John Rubislaw, a retired Admiral of the Fleet, whose forty years' official connection with Britannia's realm betrayed itself in a nautical roll, syncopated by gout, and what I may describe as a hurricane-deck voice. My three companions in the debate were my host, Master Gerald, and another guest in the house, one Dermott, an officer in a Highland regiment.
The Admiral ascribed my Sabbath intuition to the working of some inward and automatic monitor; while Dermott, among whose many sterling qualities delicate fancy was not included, put it down to the smell of some special dish indigenous to Sunday breakfast. My brother-in-law's contribution to the debate was an unseemly and irreverent parallel between Saturday night potations and Sunday morning "heads."
To us entered Dolly and Phillis.
Our hostess, together with Kitty and the other girl of the party—an American young lady of considerable personal attractions—had driven off to church in what is locally called a "machine." The duties of escort had been voluntarily undertaken by an undergraduate named Standish, who was the latest recruit to the American young lady's army of worshippers. The rest of us had stayed at home—the Admiral because he not infrequently did so; I because I was expecting Robin back by the "machine" (which was to pick him up at a wayside station, where he had been sitting on his portmanteau ever since six o'clock that morning, having been dropped there by the night mail from London), and was anticipating two or three hours' solid work with him; Gerald because he had succeeded in evading his eldest sister's eye during the search for church recruits; Dolly to look after Phillis; and Captain Dermott for reasons not unconnected with Dolly.
It was Phillis's birthday, but out of consideration for Scottish views on Sabbath observance the festivities in connection with that anniversary had been postponed until the morrow. However, this did not prevent my daughter from demanding (and obtaining) various special privileges of an unofficial character this hot Sunday morning. Consequently a spiritually willing but carnally incompetent band, consisting of one jovial but arthritic baronet, one docile but self-conscious warrior, one indulgent but overheated parent, and Dolly—Gerald stood scornfully aloof—were compelled to devote the next two hours to a series of games, stage-plays, and allegories of an innocuous but exhausting description.
We began by joining hands and walking in a circle, solemnly chanting a ditty of the "I-saw-a-ship-a-sailing" variety, which culminated in the following verse—
"Then three times round went that gallant ship,
Then three times round went she;
Then three times round went that gallant ship—
(Here we were commanded by the mistress of the revels, in a hoarse and hurried stage whisper, to be ready to fall down)
—And sank to the bottom—of—the—sea!"
"Now all fall down!" screamed Phillis.
We did so, and lay on the grass in serried heaps. The remark which the Admiral made when my left elbow descended upon his goutiest foot was fortunately obscured by the fact that his face was inside his hat at the moment.
After that we performed the "most lamentable comedy" of "The Three Bears." Phillis assigned the parts, reserving for herself the rôle of Curly Locks and Stage Manager. Dolly was cast for Mother Bear, Captain Dermott for Father Bear, and I for Baby Bear. The Admiral, at his own urgent request, was allotted the comparatively unimportant part of Baby Bear's bed, and sat nursing his foot and observing with keen relish the preparations of the Bear family for their morning walk. We set out at last, all three on our hands and knees, Dolly and Dermott crawling amicably side by side, heroically regardless of white skirt and Sunday sporran; I, as befitted my youth and station, bringing up the rear.
The Bears having vacated their domicile (the grass plot), Curly Locks, after much furtive peeping round bushes, entered and advanced to the rustic table, where she proceeded to test the contents of the various porridge-bowls (represented by two tobacco-pouches and an ash-tray respectively).
"Too hot!" she said, after sampling the first bowl.
"Too cold!" she continued, trying the next.
"A-a-ah!" she cried, coming to the third; and swallowed its contents (some heather-tops) with every appearance of enjoyment.
After that came the inspection of the beds (two sofa-cushions and the Admiral), and finally Curly Locks retired to rest on her grand-uncle's knee.
Then the Three Bears came painfully back from the shrubbery, and Curly Locks' acts of spoliation were revealed one by one. My assumption of grief on the discovery of my empty porridge-bowl was so realistic that the Stage Manager sat up in bed and commended me for it. Finally we went the round of the furniture; Curly Locks was duly discovered; and I was engaged in a life-and-death struggle for her shrieking person with the bed itself, when there was a crunching of gravel, and the "machine" drove up with Robin inside it.
After my secretary had greeted those of us whom he knew, and been interrupted in the middle of a rapturous embrace from Phillis to be introduced to those whom he did not, I took him off indoors for a meal, through the breakfast-room window, and opened the portfolio of correspondence which he had brought me from London.
"Hallo! Here is a letter for Dermott," I said. "I'll take it to him."
I stepped through the window and handed the letter to Dermott, who was falling into line for a fresh game just outside.
"That envelope looks terribly official," said Dolly. "What does it all mean?"
"I expect it means Aldershot," said Dermott ruefully. "However, I shan't open it till lunch-time." And he stuffed the offending epistle into his pocket, and returned to the game in hand with a zest and abandon that betrayed ulterior motives in every antic.
We had seen a good deal of Captain Dermott that summer. Somehow he had been in nearly every house we had visited; and his laborious expressions of pleased surprise at meeting us there had now given way to specious and transparent explanations of his own presence. The experts at countless tea-tables and shooting-lunches were practically unanimous in the opinion that Dolly could land her fish when she chose now; and as the fish was a good fellow, and could offer her three thousand a-year and the reflected glory of a D.S.O., it was generally conceded that my youngest sister-in-law—have I ever mentioned that Dolly was the junior Twin?—was about to do extremely well for herself.
I sat by Robin as he consumed his breakfast, and waded through my correspondence. There was a good deal to sign and a good deal to digest, and a good deal that was of no importance whatsoever. But the clou of the whole budget was contained in a private letter from my Chief. I read it.
"My word, Robin!" I said. "There's to be a Dissolution in January."
There was no answer, and I looked up.
Robin was not listening. His attention had wandered to the game in progress on the lawn. This was one of Phillis' most cherished pastimes, and was called "Beckoning." The players, except the person who for the time being filled the rôle of "It," stood patiently in a row, until "It," after mature consideration, beckoned invitingly to one of them to approach. This invitation might or might not be a genuine one, for sometimes the player on responding was received by the beckoner with hisses and other symptoms of distaste, and fell back ignominiously on the main body. But if you were the real object of the beckoner's affections, you were greeted with embraces and a cry of "I choose you!" and succeeded to the proud post of "It."
It was a simple but embarrassing game, calling for the exercise of considerable tact when played by adults. At the present moment Phillis was beckoner, while Dolly, Dermott, and the Admiral stood meekly in line awaiting selection. Dolly and the Admiral were each called without being chosen, and Phillis's final selection proved to be Dermott, who, having received an enthusiastic salute from the retiring president, now stood sheepishly on one leg surveying the expectant trio before him.
He began by beckoning to his host; and, having relieved that gentleman's apprehensions by sibilant noises, waggled a nervous finger at Dolly. Dolly advanced obediently.
"Choose her, if you like," said Phillis magnanimously.
Dermott's martial eye kindled, but he made no sign, and the game faltered in its stride for a moment.
"Say," interpolated the prompter, "'I choose you!' and then k——"
But Dermott, hastily emitting a hiss which must have cost him a heartrending effort, relegated the greatly relieved Dolly to the ranks, and smoothed over the situation by "choosing" my daughter, to that young person's undisguised gratification.
It was at this phase in the proceedings that Robin's attention began to wander from the affairs of State, and I had to repeat my news of the impending Dissolution to him twice before he grasped its full significance. Even then he displayed about one-tenth of the excitement I should have expected of him; and finally he admitted that he was somewhat dérangé after his night journey, and suggested a postponement of business in favour of a little recreation on the lawn.
We accordingly added ourselves to the party, just in time to join the cast of Phillis' next production. This was an ambitious but complicated drama of an allegorical type, in which Robin appeared—not for the first time, evidently—as a boy called Henry, and Phillis doubled the parts of Henry's mother and a fairy. These two rôles absorbed practically the whole of what is professionally known as "the fat" of the piece, and the other members of the company were relegated—to their ill-disguised relief—to parts of purely nominal importance.
The curtain rose (if I may use the expression) upon Henry's humble home, where Henry was discovered partaking of breakfast (fir-cones). He complained bitterly to his mother of the hardship of (a) early rising, (b) going to school, and (c) enduring chastisement when he got there. The next scene revealed him in class, where the schoolmaster (Dolly, assiduously prompted by Phillis) asked him a series of questions, which he answered so incorrectly as to incur the extreme penalty of "the muckle tawse." (Here what textual critics term "internal evidence of a later hand" peeped out unmistakably.) The punishment having been duly inflicted by Dolly with a rug-strap, Henry retired, suffused with tears, to "a mountain-top," where he gave vent to a series of bitter reflections on the hardness of his lot and the hollowness of life in general.
He must have "gagged" unduly here, for presently he was cut short by a stern admonition to "wish for a fairy."
"I wish for a fairy," said Henry dutifully.
Phillis, given her cue at last, pirouetted before him with outstretched skirts.
"Go on!" she whispered excitedly. "Say, 'I wish that all Pain was Pleasure and all Pleasure Pain.'"
"Oh, sorry!" said Henry. "I wish that all Pain was Pleasure and Pleasure Pain."
"Have then thy wish!" announced the fairy solemnly, and fluttered away.
The drama thereafter pursued a remorselessly logical and improving course. Having got his wish, the luckless Henry found that his only moments of pleasure were those during which he was enduring the tawse, getting out of bed on a cold morning, or doing something equally unpleasant. On the other hand, his comfortable bed had become so painful that he could only obtain rest by filling it with stones; and his matutinal porridge was only made palatable by the addition of a handful of gravel.
After a fruitless interview with the family physician (Captain Dermott), in which the patient's mother set forth her offspring's symptoms with embarrassing frankness, Henry was compelled, as a last resort, to pay one more visit to the mountain-top. The indulgent fairy kindly agreed to put things right, but only under penalty of an improving homily on contentment with one's lot and the fatuity of asking for what you do not really want. This was only half finished when the party returned from church, and Phillis, realising that the absolute despotism of the last few hours would now be watered down by an unsentimental mother into a limited monarchy at the best, retired within her shell and declared the revels at an end.
II.
"What was the church like?" I inquired at lunch.
"I have witnessed more snappy entertainments," remarked Miss Buncle, the American girl, through her pretty nose. "Still, we smiled some. Mr Standish here got quite delirious when the minister prayed for 'the adjacent country of England, which, as Thou knowest, O Lord, lies some twa hundred miles to the sooth of us,'—I'm sorry I can't talk Scotch, Mr Fordyce,—as if he was afraid that Providence might mail the blessing to the wrong address and Iceland would get it."
Kitty broke in upon Miss Buncle's reminiscences.
"Who do you think we saw in church?" she said. "I nearly forgot to tell you. Your uncle, Robin—Sir James Fordyce!"
Robin nodded his head in a confirmatory way.
"He is often up here at this time of year," he said.
"He has friends here, perhaps?" said I.
"Oh yes; he has friends."
I could tell from Robin's voice that he was nursing some immense joke, but he betrayed no inclination to share it with us. Kitty went on.
"He was sitting in a pew with some farmery-looking people. There was a patriarchal old man, very stately and imposing, rather like—like——"
"Moses?" I suggested.
"No. I don't think Moses was like that."
I had got as far as 'Aar'—when Lady Rubislaw said—
"Elijah?"
"That's it," replied Kitty. "Just like Elijah." (All things considered, I cannot imagine why Moses would not have done as well.) "Then beside him was a perfectly dear old lady. Not so very old either; say sixty. Of course they may not have belonged to Sir James at all: he may just have been put in their pew. Still, they kept handing him Bibles, and looking up places for him at singing time."
"That means nothing," said I. "It's the merest courtesy here."
"True," said our hostess. "I was having a most lovely little doze during the Second Lesson, or whatever they call it, when a most officious young woman three or four pews away took up an enormous Bible, found the place, squeaked down the aisle, and thrust it under my nose. I had to hold it up for fifty-seven verses," she concluded pathetically.
"Did you go and speak to Sir James after the service?" I inquired.
"No. That was this child's fault," said Kitty, indicating Miss Buncle.
"How?"
"Well, there was a rather gorgeous-looking chieftain sort of person sitting in a front pew, and I saw Maimie twisting her head all during the service to look at him."
"Yes," admitted the culprit frankly. "Put me in the neighbourhood of a kilt, and I'm a common rubberneck straight away, Mr Inglethwaite. I'm just mad to know all those cunning tartans by heart."
"The moment the service was over," continued my wife severely, "I saw her edging through the crowd in the churchyard towards the chieftain. For a moment I thought she was going to ask him his name."
"I wasn't!" declared Miss Buncle indignantly.
"No, you did worse. She got close to the unfortunate man," continued my wife to us, "and suddenly I noticed that she had in her hand one of those little books you buy at railway book-stalls in the Highlands, with patterns of all the tartans in them and the name of the clan underneath. By the time I got up to her she had found the right tartan in the book, and was matching it up against the back of the poor unconscious creature's kilt. Then she turned to me in a triumphant sort of way and simply bellowed—'M'Farlane!'"
"We shall probably be hauled up before the Kirk-session," said the Admiral. "But I wonder who Sir James Fordyce's friends can be. I know most of the people who have shootings about here, but none of them are friends of his that I can think of. We must get him to come and shoot here one day. Rather late for to-morrow's drive, but there will be another on Thursday. I wonder who his host is, though?"
"I might help you," said Robin. "An old man, you said, with his wife?"
"Yes—oldish," said Kitty.
"Was there a son with them?"
"N-no."
"No? Well, he would be away at the lamb-sales, perhaps," said Robin reflectively. "Was there a daughter?"
"Now you mention it," said Kitty, "there was. A nice, bonny-looking girl. Twenty-four, I should say."
"Twenty-three," said Robin.
We all turned on him.
"Now then, what is all the mystery? Out with it! Who is the girl—eh?"
"She would be my sister," said Robin calmly. "And the others were my father and mother."
There was a little gasp of surprise all round the table. Robin went on—
"My home is just seven miles from here. This is the first time I have got near my folk for six years. To-morrow I mean to go and see them. And they would like fine, I know," he added a little shyly, "if some of you would come with me."
"I'll come," said Kitty promptly. "I should love to meet your mother, Robin."
"May I come, Uncle Robin?" piped Phillis. "For a birfday treat," she added, in extenuation.
Applications for an invitation rained in. Apart from a desire to please a man whom we all respected—and our ready offers undoubtedly did please him—I think we were all a little curious to view the mould which had turned Robin out.
"You can't all go," said the Admiral at last. "There's the grouse-drive to-morrow, and eight butts to fill; not to mention the need of female society at lunch."
Finally it was arranged that Robin should take Kitty and Phillis over on a sort of preliminary call, and they could arrange for the establishment of more substantial relations.
But that evening, as the ladies were having their candles lit at the foot of the staircase, I heard Robin say to Dolly—
"Will you come with us to-morrow?"
Dolly seemed to consider, and was about to reply, when Dermott, who never seemed very far away now, cut in.
"Too late, Fordyce! Miss Rubislaw has promised to come and load for me in my butt to-morrow afternoon."
"No, I'm afraid it can't be managed this time, Robin," said Dolly. "But I am coming with you later in the week, if you'll take me."
Robin said nothing.
Now Dolly, I knew, did not approve of the inclusion of females in the business part of a day's shooting; and she regarded Miss Buncle and her twenty-eight bore with pious horror. The fact that she had consented to come and hold Dermott's second gun to-morrow seemed to indicate that that gallant sportsman had accomplished a feat which had already proved too much for several highly deserving young men—I was not quite sure that Robin was not one of them; and there seemed to be every reason to anticipate (especially since he was due to start for Aldershot to-morrow night) that when the Captain returned from the chase to-morrow afternoon, his bag would include one head of game of an interesting and unusual variety.
III.
At ten o'clock next morning we met the keepers, dogs, and beaters not far from the first line of butts on the moor. There was a hot sun, and the bees were bumbling in the heather. Somehow Whitehall seemed a long way off.
The number of guns had been brought up to seven by the inclusion of a neighbouring laird—one Gilmerton of Nethercraigs—and his son.
"All the same, we are still a man short," complained the Admiral, to whom a house-party was a ship's company, and a day's shooting a sort of terrestrial naval manoeuvre. "However, we will cut out the end butt in each drive and put a stop there to turn the birds farther in. Now we'll draw for places. Each man to take the butt whose number he draws, counting from the right and moving up one place after each drive. And Heaven help the man who draws number four now, for it means number seven and a climb up The Pimple for him directly after lunch!"
There was a general laugh at this, which swelled to an unseemly roar when I drew the fatal number.
However, after lunch was a long way off, and I trotted contentedly to number four and settled down to a pipe, while the head-keeper led off his mixed multitude of assistants, dogs, boys, and red flags to make a détour and work the game up towards us.
The first drive was simple. We were in a long and rather shallow glen, across which ran a low ridge, dividing it into two almost equal sections. The butts were placed along this ridge; and after the birds had been sent over us the beaters would work round to the other end of the glen and drive them back again. The shooting would be easy, for the ground lay flat and open in either direction.
I found myself between Standish and Gerald; the former on my right, and the latter, together with the young keeper to whom his shooting education had been entrusted, in the butt on my left. Beyond Standish was Dermott, the crack shot of the party, and beyond Dermott, in number one butt, was the Admiral. The Gilmertons, père et fils, occupied the butts on the extreme left.
The drive was moderately successful. At first the birds came along singly, mostly on the right, and fell an easy prey to Dermott and the Admiral. But presently a great pack got up comparatively near the butts, and fairly "rushed" us. I brought off an easy right and left straight in front of me, and then, snapping out my cartridges and slipping another in, I swung round and just managed to bring down a third bird with a "stern chaser"—a feat which I regretted to observe no one else noticed, for there was a perfect fusilade all along the line at the moment. Master Gerald, who had discharged his first barrel straight into the "brown," succeeded, in obedience to his mentor's admonitions, in covering an old cock-grouse with his second, and carefully following that flustered fowl's course with the point of his gun, pulled the trigger just as it skimmed, low down, with an agitated squawk, between his butt and mine. I heard the shot rattle through the heather, and two pellets hit on my left boot.
The congenial task of telling Gerald, in a low but penetrating voice, exactly what I thought of him, occupied my attention so fully for the next minute that I failed to observe a blackcock which suddenly swung up into view and whizzed straight past my head, to the audible annoyance of the distant Admiral and the undisguised joy of my unrepentant relative.
No more birds came after that, and presently, the line of beaters having advanced within range, we put down our guns and collected the slain. We had not done badly, considering the fact that the main body of the birds had swerved away to our left over the unoccupied butt, despite the valiant efforts of an urchin with a red flag to turn them. Dermott headed the list with four and a half brace, and Gerald brought up the rear with a mangled corpse which had received the contents of his first barrel point-blank at a distance of about six feet. The laird of Nethercraigs (a cautious and economical sportsman, who was reputed never to loose off his gun at anything which did not come and perch on his butt) had fired just three cartridges and killed just three birds, but his son had seven. The Admiral and Standish had also had average luck, and altogether we had fourteen and a half brace to show for our exertions.
Off went the beaters again, and we changed butts and waited. The second drive gave us fewer birds but better sport. There were no great packs, but we got plenty to do in the way of sharp-shooting, and Gerald's keeper—a singularly ambiguous title in this case—succeeded by increased vigilance in preserving me from being further sniped by my enterprising brother-in-law.
We totalled up twelve brace this time, and then made ready for a tramp to the next line of butts, away round the shoulder of a fairly distant hill.
"We may as well spread out and walk 'em up this bit," said our host. "We can't have the dogs, though, as the keepers and beaters are going a different way; and each man will have to carry what he shoots. In that case we'll leave rabbits alone. Gerald, you had better get to the extreme left of the line. That will limit the risk to one man!"
"I'll carry home your bag if you'll carry mine, Gerald," cried Standish facetiously, as my brother-in-law, a trifle offended at the Admiral's last pleasantry, proceeded with much dignity to his allotted place.
Gerald was almost out of earshot, but he waved a defiant acquiescence.
We tramped round the shoulder of the hill, keeping our distance as well as we could on the steep slope, and occasionally putting up something to shoot at. My bag this time made no great demands on my powers of porterage, consisting as it did of a solitary snipe. However, when nearly an hour later we gathered at the foot of the next line of butts—the last before lunch—most of us were carrying something. Standish gleefully displayed two hares and a brace of grouse.
"There is something for Master Gerald to carry back to the luncheon-cart," he said. "I wonder what he has got for me. Where is he?"
"I don't quite know," said Dermott, who had been Gerald's nearest neighbour. "He was so offended by our gibes about the danger of his society that he walked rather wide of me. He kept down at the very foot of the hill most of the time, almost out of sight."
"I hope he hasn't shot himself," said the Admiral rather anxiously.
"Never fear!" said I. "That will not be his end. Here he is."
Sure enough, Gerald appeared at this moment. He was empty-handed.
Simple and primitive jests greeted him.
"Hallo, old man, what have you shot—eh? Where is your little lot?"
Gerald smiled seraphically.
"You'll find it down there," he said—"in that patch of bracken, Standish. I left it for you to bring up. Rather heavy for me."
"What on earth have you shot?" we cried involuntarily.
"A sheep," said Gerald calmly.
Great heavens!
We rushed down the hill as one man—and came up again looking not a little hot and uncommonly foolish. The sheep was there, it is true, stiff and stark in the bracken; but more senses than one apprised us of the fact that it had been dead for considerably more than five minutes. Gerald had stumbled on to the corpse, and had turned his discovery, we afterwards admitted, to remarkably good advantage. It was "Mr Standish's turn," as Miss Buncle, in the picturesque but mysterious vernacular of her race, remarked at luncheon, "to hold the baby this time."
After the third drive we gladly put up our guns and tramped down the hillside to the road below, where the ladies were waiting and the feast was spread. After we had disposed of grouse sandwiches, whisky-and-water, and jammy scones, and were devoting our post-prandial leisure to repose or dalliance with the fair—according as we were married or single—Lady Rubislaw inquired—
"Where are you shooting this afternoon, John?"
"The Neb, first," replied the Admiral. "And that reminds me, the man who drew the top butt had better start now, or he'll be late."
With many groans, and followed by the mingled derision and sympathy of the company, I picked up my impedimenta and started, leaving the others to decide who, if any, of the shooters was to have the honour of entertaining a lady in his butt.
The Neb was a great mountain spur, whose base ran to within two or three hundred yards of our resting-place. In appearance it roughly resembled a mighty Napoleonic nose. The butts ran right up the ridge of that organ; and nine hundred feet above where we sat, just below an excrescence locally known as "The Pimple," lay mine.
I reached my eyrie at last, and having laid my flask, tobacco-pouch, and twelve loose cartridges where I could reach them most handily on projecting shelves of peat inside the butt—I love neatness and method: Kitty says that when (if ever) I get to heaven I will decline to enter until I have wiped my boots,—settled down to enjoy a superb view and take note of the not altogether uninteresting manner in which the other members of the party were disposing themselves for the drive.
Just below me were Standish and Miss Buncle, the lady a conspicuous mark for all men (and grouse) to behold by reason of a red tam o'shanter, the sight of which made me regret that its wearer was not employed as a beater. In the butt below were Dermott and Dolly—both very workmanlike and inconspicuous. Below them came the Admiral, with his wife (she always came and sat behind him, like a remarkably smart little powder-monkey, during the afternoon drive): below them, the Gilmertons; and last of all, thank Heaven! Gerald.
The shooting on this beat would not be easy, though birds were always plentiful. They came round the face of the hill at very short range and express speed. My particular butt was notoriously difficult to score from. There was an awkward hummock in front of it, and driven birds swinging into view round this were practically right over the butt before its occupant could get his gun up.
It was a rather sleepy afternoon. Far away I could hear the sound of the advancing beaters—the cries of the boys, the occasional barking of a dog, and the shrill piping of the headkeeper's whistle. Suddenly three birds swung into view round the face of the hill, and made straight for the line of butts. They were just below me, nearer to Standish's butt than mine, but I put up my gun and picked off the nearest. The other two, instead of keeping on their course over Standish's head, suddenly swerved round to the left, almost at right angles—I think they had seen Miss Buncle's tam o' shanter and simultaneously decided that there are worse things than death—and flew straight down the line, followed by an ineffectual volley from the twelve and twenty-eight bores respectively.
"Now, Dermott, my boy!" I ejaculated, as the birds skimmed past the third butt. "There's a chance for a really pretty right and left."
But no sound—no movement even—came from our crack's lair. The birds flew by unharmed, only to fall later on, one to the Admiral, and one to young Gilmerton.
"Dormitat Homerus," I murmured, gazing curiously towards Dermott's butt. "I wonder if—Jove, there they go! What a pack! Well done, Gerald! Oh, Gilmerton, you old sweep! Fire, man, fire! Good old Admiral! Dermott, man, what the devil—— Have at them!"
I fairly danced in the heather. A perfect cloud of birds was pouring over the lower part of the line. The Admiral, the Gilmertons, and Gerald were firing fast and furiously,—even the laird of Nethercraigs loosed off at birds that were neither running nor sitting,—and when the beaters appeared in sight five minutes later, and the drive came to an end, the four lower butts totalled twelve brace among them.
I humbly proffered my solitary contribution.
"Twelve and a half," said the Admiral. "Now, Standish?"
"N.E. this time," remarked that youth philosophically.
The Admiral said nothing, but I saw his choleric blue eyes slide round in the direction of Miss Buncle's headgear. He turned to Dermott.
"How many, old man?"
"Blob!"
That Dermott should return empty-handed from any kind of chase was so surprising that we all turned round for the explanation. Dermott was looking very dejected. This was evidently a blow to his professional pride.
"Didn't any of that great pack come near you?" asked the Admiral sympathetically.
"No—don't think so," said Dermott shortly.
I had counted eight birds flying straight over his butt myself, but I said nothing. I was beginning to comprehend. Et ego in Arcadia vixi.
But the obtuse master-mariner persisted.
"How about that brace that flew right down the line? You must have seen 'em coming all the way. You didn't even try a shot at them, man!"
Dermott, who was fastening up his gaiter, answered rather listlessly—
"Sorry! It was—a misfire, I think."
"What?" cried the outraged Admiral. "A misfire? Both barrels—of both guns?"
I did not hear the answer to this. I was looking at Dolly. Her face could not be seen, for she was kneeling down a little distance away, assiduously fondling the silky ears of a highly-gratified red setter. And I realised then that some expressions are capable of a metaphorical as well as a literal interpretation.
IV.
My wife and daughter returned home in the "machine" in time for dinner, without Robin.
"His mother kept him," Kitty explained. She was favouring me with a summary of her day's adventures, in the garden after dinner. "Such an old dear, Adrian! And his father is a grand old man. Very solemn and scriptural-looking and all that, but so courtly and simple when once he gets over his shyness. (He tried to come in to tea in his shirt-sleeves, but his wife hustled him out of the kitchen just in time.) Sir James Fordyce was a shock, though. When we arrived he was chopping turnips in a machine, dressed in clothes like any farm-labourer's. He said it was fine to get back to his own people again. To look at him you would never guess that he was one of the best known men in London, and a favourite at Court, and such an old dandy in Bond Street. The rest of the household didn't seem to set any particular store by him. They took him quite as a matter of course."
"What a pity English people can't do the same," I mused. "If they do possess a distinguished relative they brag about him, and he usually responds by avoiding them. If he does honour them with a visit, they try to live up to him, and put on unnecessary frills, and summon all the neighbourhood to come and inspect him."
"There's nothing of that kind about the Fordyces," said Kitty. "Sir James was just one of themselves; he even spoke like them. It was, 'Aye, Jeems!' and 'Aye, John!' all the time."
"How about the rest of the family?" I inquired.
"The mother was immensely pleased to have Robin with her again, I could see," said Kitty. "She made no particular fuss over him, but I'm sure she simply hugged him as soon as we were gone. She had a talk with me about him when we were alone. She seems to regard him as the least successful member of the family, although he has been a good son to them. (Do you know, Adrian, he has sent them something like two hundred pounds during the time he has been with us? And that must have left him little enough to go on with, goodness knows!) But I don't think they consider him a patch on the eldest son, who is a great silent man with a beard—a sort of Scotch John Ridd. He looks years older than Robin, though of course he isn't. He is a splendid farmer, his mother tells me, and greatly "respeckit" in the district. But the poor dear was so frightened of me that he simply bolted from the house the moment he had finished his tea. The sister is pretty, and nice too, but shy. I'm afraid she found my clothes rather overpowering, though I'd only a coat and skirt on. But we got on splendidly after that. She is going to be married next month, to the minister, which is considered an immense triumph for her by the whole community. We must send them a present. By the way, what's the matter with Dolly?"
"What's the matter with poor old Dermott?" I retorted.
At this moment the much-enduring "machine" jingled up to the door, and Captain Dermott's luggage, together with his gun-cases and a generous bundle of game for the mess-table at Aldershot, was piled in at the back. Their owner followed after, and seeing the glowing end of my cigar in the dark, advanced to say good-bye.
Kitty uttered some pretty expression of regret at his departure, and flitted into the house. Dermott and I surveyed each other silently through the darkness.
"Is it any use asking you to come and look us up in town?" I said at last rather lamely.
He laughed through set teeth—not a pretty sound.
"I think I'll—avoid your household for a bit, Adrian," he answered.
I nodded gravely.
"I see," I said. "I—I'm sorry, old man!"
"I'm going to India, if I can get away," he continued, after a pause.
"Good scheme!" I replied. "We shall think of you most kindly—er, all of us."
He said nothing, but shook hands in a grateful sort of fashion, and turned away.
I suppose there is a reason for everything in this world. Still, the spectacle of a good man fighting dumbly with a cruel disappointment—and disappointment is perhaps the bitterest pill in all the pharmacopeia of life—is certainly a severe test of one's convictions on the subject.
At this moment the rest of the party—minus Dolly—flowed out on to the doorstep to say farewell; and two minutes later Captain Dermott drove heavily away—back to his day's work.
Well, thank God there is always that!
"I thought she was going to take him," said Kitty in her subsequent summing-up. "It was far and away the best offer she has ever had. And he is such a dear, too! What does the child want, I wonder! A coronet?"
"'A dinner of herbs,' perhaps," said I.
Kitty eyed me thoughtfully, and gave a wise little nod.
"Yes—Dolly is just that sort," she agreed. "But what makes you think that?"
"Oh—nothing," I said.
There are certain matters upon which it is almost an impertinence for a man to offer an opinion to a woman, and I rather shrank from rushing in where my wife had evidently not thought it worth while to tread. Still, I could not help wondering in my heart whether the arrival of one gentleman on Sunday may not sometimes have something to do, however indirectly, with the abrupt departure of another gentleman on Monday.