“In that case, you’d require a very capacious wheelbarrow, and I should pity the individual who had to trundle it. Come! finish the bottle—you won’t? then I will—and now we’ll be off—it strikes me, fatigue has something to do with it, as well as the luncheon; you’ve been smoke-drying in London, young man, till you’re out of condition,” returned Coverdale, laughing, as he remarked the stiff manner in which his friend rose and walked across the cottage.
Another hour’s striding through high grass and fern proved the correctness of this assertion; for Hazlehurst, unaccustomed to such severe exercise, began to show unmistakable symptoms of knocking up. His friend observed him with attention—“You really are tired, Arthur,” he said, good naturedly, “you’ll be fit for nothing to-morrow, if you walk much farther. Go back, Markum, and send one of your boys for the shooting pony; let him bring it to us at the bridge foot—I am going over Wild Acre farm next: I shall try through the spinney and round the large meadow, so you can cut across and join us again in half-an-hour—and Markum—wait one moment:—What sort of person is this man Styles? How should I know him if I should happen to run against him?”
“Well, he be a tall, broad-shouldered, roughish-looking chap, rather an orkard customer for to tackle, Mr. Coverdale, sir, and he generally have a sort of cross-bred, lurcher-like dog along with him, if you please Mr. ’Enry, that is, Mr. Coverdale, sir”—and so saying, Markum started at a swinging trot to execute his master’s wishes.
“The fellow looks as if he could go on at that pace for a fortnight without turning a hair,” observed Hazlehurst, pausing to wipe his brow; “I never saw such a cast-iron animal.”
“He’s at it every day, and that keeps him in good order,” replied Coverdale; “but I’ve walked him down before now, and should not wonder if I were to do so to-day—I’m just getting what the jockeys call my ‘second wind,’ and am good for the next four hours at least—ha! there’s a rabbit sitting, pull at it when I clap my hands.”
“It’s too long a shot for me,” replied Hazlehurst, “bag him yourself.”
Thus urged, Coverdale brought his gun to his shoulder and drew the trigger, but the cap was a bad one, and would not go off, and his second barrel being loaded with small shot, in the hope of picking up a landrail (of which Markum had reported the probable whereabouts), the rabbit skipped away uninjured. It had not proceeded ten paces, however, when it sprang into the air, and rolled over dead—at the same moment the report of a gun rang out from behind some low bushes, and a lurcher dog dashed forward, and picked up the defunct rabbit. Coverdale’s face flushed with anger, and hastily exchanging the defective percussion cap for a sound one, he raised his gun with the intention of shooting the dog; but, though quick-tempered, Harry was a thoroughly kind-hearted fellow, and a moment’s reflection caused him to relinquish his purpose; recovering his gun, he muttered—
“Poor brute, why should I kill it?—it’s not his fault, but his master’s.”
As he spoke a tall figure rose from behind the bushes, whence the shot had proceeded, and whistling to the dog, took the rabbit from him, and put it in the pocket of a voluminous-skirted shooting-jacket.
“That’s the redoubtable Mr. Styles, in propriâ personâ, I imagine,” observed Hazlehurst.