When Joseline had retired, Lord Mulgrave, as he smoked alone, began to ask himself if he would not have been wise to have accepted Lottie’s broad hint, and sent the child to a school for a few months, just to rub off the rough edges of her vocabulary?
The shooting party were to have a grand battue the following morning. All the ladies who were not sportswomen were to meet the guns at a keeper’s cottage, and there share their luncheon. But some of the women preferred to walk with the guns. These included Tito, who begged Joseline to accompany her to the neighbourhood of a celebrated warm corner, where they took their stand; but after a very short time Joseline and her dog made their way elsewhere. She had no taste for the spectacle. As she struggled through the undergrowth, she suddenly came upon Dudley Deverell, gun in hand, his loader beside him, awaiting the magic words “Mark over!”
“I say, what in the world are you doing here? and with a dog too! If the governor sees it he will be furious,” he drawled. “If you don’t mind you’ll get shot.”
“The dog will stick to me, and I’m striving to get out of the wood and doing my big best; but wherever I go there are guns and slaughter. Pah!” she exclaimed, “grown-up men shooting tame pheasants! Why don’t you wring their necks, and have done with it!”
Dudley Deverell, who prided himself on being a dead shot and a keen sportsman (when his health permitted), stiffened and coloured with annoyance. What did this girl know of shooting or sport? She really was a young savage! “I see you don’t approve of us, which is deplorable; for you will have to remain here till the end of the beat.”
“Who says so?” she demanded.
“I do. You may get shot. Mark over!” He raised his gun. Bang! bang! went two barrels, and a couple of rocketters came crashing heavily down. One of them fluttered about till it was put an end to. “What do you think of that?” he inquired.
“I call it a horrid sight!” was the unexpected reply. “There is no chance or fair play in it. But I suppose the poulterers have to be supplied!”
“Pray what do you know about poulterers?”