"It was pretty difficult," Braid added. "I could have knocked him into a cocked hat, and near as a touch I did it."
"Though he's my cousin," said Harry, "I'm afraid he's a bad lot. He's very unpopular in the diplomatic club in London to which he belongs. When I went back to school last term I happened to travel in the same carriage as two men who had known him well in Germany, and who talked about him the whole way. It appears that he's sowing his wild oats right and left, that he's always gambling and is already heavily in debt."
"I fancy," said Braid, "that a gamekeeper soon learns to know a rogue when he sees one. You see, sir, we're always after foxes or poachers or weasels; and the first time as ever I set eyes on Captain von Hardenberg, I said to myself: 'That man's one of them that try to live by their wits.'"
"I think," said Harry, "we had better talk about something else. In point of fact, Jim, I had no right to discuss my cousin at all. But I was carried away by my feelings when you told me he had struck you."
"I understand, sir," said the young gamekeeper, with a nod.
"At all events, we must make the best of him. We're to have him here for a month."
"As long as he doesn't cross my path," said Jim Braid, "I'll not meddle with him."
Soon after that they parted, Harry going towards the house, Jim taking the path that led to his father's cottage.
In the hall Harry found his cousin, who had already taken off his hat and overcoat, and was now seated before a roaring fire, with a cigarette in one hand and an empty wine glass in the other.
"Hallo!" said von Hardenberg, who spoke English perfectly. "Didn't know I was to have the pleasure of your company. Where's my uncle?"