“Voracious animals that we hate,
Cats, rats, and bats deserve their fate,”
he said pompously, and immediately brought the stick down on the rat’s head with a determination that effectually disposed of all plans for its future, educational or otherwise.
Garry and Francie cried out together, but James Canavan turned his back unregardingly upon them and his victim, and stalked back to Sir Benjamin, whose imprecations, since Francie’s escape, had been pleasantly audible.
“The old beast!” said Garry, looking resentfully after his late ally; “you never know what he’ll do next. I believe if mother hadn’t been there last night, he’d have gone on jumping on Kitty Gascogne till he killed her. By the bye, Miss Fitzpatrick, Hawkins passed up the lake just now, and he shouted out to me to say that he’d be at the turf-boat pier at four o’clock, and he hoped none of you were going out.”
Then he had not forgotten her; he was going to keep his word, thought Francie, with a leap of the heart, but further thoughts were cut short by the sudden appearance of Pamela, Christopher, and Miss Hope-Drummond at the end of the ride. The treacherous slaughter of the rat was immediately recounted to Pamela at full length by Garry, and Miss Fitzpatrick addressed herself to Christopher.
“How sweet your woods are, Mr. Dysart,” she began, feeling that some speech of the kind was suitable to the occasion. “I declare, I’d never be tired walking in them!”
Christopher was standing a little behind the others, looking cool and lank in his flannels, and feeling a good deal less interested in things in general than he appeared. He had an agreeably craven habit of simulating enjoyment in the society of whoever fate threw him in contact with, not so much from a wish to please as from a politeness that had in it an unworthy fear of exciting displeasure; and so ably had he played the part expected of him that Miss Hope-Drummond had felt, as she strolled with him and his sister through the sunshiny wood, that he really was far more interested in her than she had given him credit for, and that if that goose Pamela were not so officious in always pursuing them about everywhere, they would have got on better still. She did not trouble her brothers in this way, and the idea that Mr. Dysart would not have come at all without his sister did not occur to her. She was, therefore, by no means pleased when she heard him suggest to Miss Fitzpatrick that she should come and see the view from the point, and saw them walk away in that direction without any reference to the rest of the party.
Christopher himself could hardly have explained why he did it. It is possible that he felt Francie’s ingenuous, unaffected vulgarity to be refreshing after the conversation in which Miss Hope-Drummond’s own especial tastes and opinions had shed their philosophy upon a rechauffé of the society papers, and recollections of Ascot and Hurlingham. Perhaps also, after his discovery that Francie had a soul to be saved, he resented the absolute possession that Hawkins had taken of her the night before. Hawkins was a good little chap, but not the sort of person to develop a nascent intellectuality, thought this sage of seven-and-twenty.
“Why did you come out here by yourself?” he said to her, some little time after they had left the others.
“And why shouldn’t I?” answered Francie, with the pertness that seldom failed her, even when, as on this morning, she felt a little uninterested in every subject except one.