“But you would be if you had to kill your own meat?”
“Perhaps. So many of us would. As a matter of fact, I don’t hunt myself, but I’m no reformer.”
“Why don’t you hunt?”
“I don’t enjoy it.” He flushed slightly. “I hate firearms,” he said, a trifle difficultly. “I always have. I don’t know why. Idiosyncrasy, I suppose. But I shouldn’t care for hunting, even with bows and arrows. I would kill a tiger or a poisonous reptile, or anything else, in case of necessity. But even then I should hardly enjoy it. I know some animals are pests and have to be killed. Some men do, too. But I don’t like to do it myself.”
“Wouldn’t that theory lead to a wholesale evasion of responsibility?”
“Perhaps. I’m no philosopher. But a blackbird or a red fox is so pretty, even when he is thieving, that I’d let him have the corn. I’m like the Lord High Executioner in The Mikado who was so tender-hearted that he couldn’t execute anybody and planned to begin with guinea-pigs and work up. Only I’m afraid I couldn’t even manage the guinea-pigs.”
She laughed. “You wouldn’t find many to practise on here. Do you raise guinea-pigs up North?”
“Ah,” he said ruefully, “you tag me, too. Have I by chance a large letter N tattooed upon my manly brow? But I suppose it’s the accent. Uncle Jefferson catalogued me in five minutes. He said he didn’t know why I was from ‘de Norf,’ but he ‘knowed’ it. I’ve annexed him and his wife, by the way.”
“You’re lucky to have them. Unc’ Jefferson and Aunt Daph might have slipped out of a plantation of the last century. They’re absolutely ante-bellum. Most of the negroes are more or less spoiled, as you’ll find, I’m afraid.” She turned the conversation bluntly. “Had you seen Damory Court before?”
“No, never.”