“’Cause, you see, I don’t feel aquil to traveling all the way back to the south of England, after having come all the way up to the north, and I do want to see my niece very bad. And I mean to send a telescope as will be sartin to fetch her. Yes, that is so.”
“Very well, then. Drive to Chuxton telegraph office, and then wherever Mr. Quin wishes to go. You are at his orders.”
The boy took the reins and drove off, and Ran turned again to question the old groom.
“Has there been much sport about here?”
“None at all, sir. Since the young squire were killed, the old squire never had no heart for nothing as long as he lived.”
“Ah! How are the preserves?”
“Well, sir, the game is increasing and multiplying to that degree for the want of sporting gents among ’em to thin ’em out, that for once in a way poachers is a blessing.”
“Poachers! Why, what is the gamekeeper about, to permit poachers to trespass?”
“Well, sir, there ain’t no gamekeeper here, nor likewise been none since the old squire died. The last gamekeeper went off to Australia to seek his fortune.”
“Thank Heaven!” breathed Ran with fervency, not loud but deep, that now he could put his friend in office without hurting any one’s feelings.