"Not from your lips," he answered, after recovering from his second shock. "Who cares to hear Venus mouth the Scythian tongue?"
She looked puzzled at the grandiloquence of this speech, and shifted her gun to the other arm. Dan saw that she was surveying him with the deepest interest, and, being a modest young man, blushed at such persistent scrutiny.
"So you are the gentleman who fought with Tim?"
"I am the vagrant who fought with the tinker," corrected Dan, smiling. "Why do you call me gentleman?"
"Because Sir Alurde Breel was a gentleman, and you are just like him."
"Indeed! I am much flattered by the comparison. Does Sir Alurde Breel live in these parts?"
"He did, but died three hundred years ago," replied Meg, dryly. "His picture is in the gallery at Farbis Court. He is an ancestor of the present Lord Ardleigh who owns the Court."
"Does his lordship live there?"
"No! He is in London, I believe. Farbis Court is let to Miss Linisfarne. But these things do not interest you. Please pick up that rabbit."
"You have had bad sport to-day," said Dan, hastening to obey this order.