“I reckon he’m getting over his trouble too quick for my liking,” answered Mr. Daccombe. “My bird will be off some fine mornin’ when shooting be over and theer’s nought more for him to kill.”
Meantime, while Jane spoke with admiration of Anthony’s good qualities, and Mrs. Daccombe heard her indignantly, young Maybridge himself was similarly angering another member of the Daccombe family. Now he stood with Dick upon the lofty crown of Higher White Tor, and watched a flock of golden plover newly come to their winter quarters from some northern home. They flew and cried at a great height above the marshes, wheeled and warped in the clear blue of a December sky; and when simultaneously they turned, there was a flash as of a hundred little stars, where the sunlight touched the plumage of their breasts and under-wings. But they were bound for a region beyond the range of the sportsmen who watched them; soon, indeed, the birds dwindled into dots, that made a great > upon the sky; and as they flew, they constantly renewed that figure.
“Pity,” said Anthony. “Off to the middle of the Moor. Haven’t got a shot at a golden plover yet. Miss Jane’s favourite bird, too, so she says.”
“No call for you to trouble about that. If she eats all I’ve shot for her, she’ll do very well.”
“You’re a lucky devil, Dick.”
“Always the way with chaps like you, who never had anything to do but ask and get ‘yes’ for an answer. You don’t know when you’re well off in these parts.”
Richard laughed without much merriment.
“There’s so good fish in the sea as ever come out of it,” he said. “I’d not break my heart for any girl.”
“A chap in love to say such a cold-blooded thing!”