“I beg your pardon a thousand times,” cried Algy. “Don’t fancy that I suggest that the dogs are not first rate. Oh, my dear fellow, I don’t know how to thank you. I am—well, my heart is too full for words.”
“There’s not a man in England except yourself that I’d lend them to,” said Mr. Burnaby. “I give you my word that I’ve been offered forty pounds for each of them. Oh, there isn’t a fault between them. They’re just perfect.”
Algy was delighted, and for the remainder of the evening he kept assuring his poor wife that he was not quite such a fool as some people, including the Scotch keeper, seemed to fancy that he was.
He had felt all along, he said, that just such a piece of luck as had occurred was in store for him, and it was on this account he had steadily refused to be gulled into buying any of the inferior animals that had been offered to him.
Oh, yes, he assured her, he knew what he was about, and he’d let MacKilloch know who it was that he had to deal with.
The Australian’s dogs were in the custody of a man at Southampton, but he promised to have them sent northward in good time. It was the evening of the eleventh when they arrived at the lodge. They were strange wiry brutes, and like no breed that Algy had ever seen. The head-keeper looked at them critically, and made some observations regarding them that did not seem grossly flattering. It was plain that if Mr. MacKilloch had conceived any sudden admiration for the dogs he contrived to conceal it. Algy said all that he could say, which was that Mr. Burnaby knew perfectly well what a dog was, and that a dog should be proved before it was condemned. Mr. MacKilloch, hearing this excellent sentiment, grunted.
The next day was a splendid Twelfth so far as the weather was concerned. Algy and his two friends were on the moor at dawn. At a signal from the head-keeper the dogs were put to their work. They seemed willing enough to work. Under their noses rose an old cock. To the horror of every one they made a snap for him, and missing him they rushed full speed through the heather in the direction he had taken, setting up birds right and left, and driving them by the score into the next moor. Algy stood aghast and speechless. It would be inaccurate to describe the attitude of Donald MacKilloch as passive. He was not silent. But in spite of his shouts—in spite of a fusi-lade of the strongest “sweers” that ever came from a God-fearing Scotchman with well-defined views of his own on the Free Kirk question, the two dogs romped over the moor, and the air was thick with grouse of all sorts and conditions, from the wary cocks to the incipient cheepers.
To the credit of Algy Grafton it must be stated that he resolutely refused to allow a gun to be put into the hands of Donald MacKilloch. There was a blood-thirsty look in the keeper’s eyes as now and again one of the dogs appeared among the clumps of purple heather. When they were tired out toward evening they were captured by one of the keepers, and led off the moor, Algy following them, for he feared that they might meet with an accident. He sent a telegram that night to their owner, and the next morning received the following reply:—
“The infernal idiot at Southampton sent you the wrong dogs. The right ones will reach you to-morrow. You have got a pair of the best kangaroo hounds in the world—worth five hundred guineas. Take care of them.—Burnaby.”
“Kangaroo hounds! kangaroo hounds!” murmured Algy with a far-away look in his eyes.