The door opened and still another tall man came in. He nodded to Pirie as he passed him, with a tolerant “Well, major,” and went straight to the dishes by the fire.
“Pirie’s got it into his head we oughtn’t to shoot to-day, Gus,” said Mr. Edward.
The other rose with a dish in his hands.
“It is dark,” he assented, glancing toward the window. “Afraid of pottin’ a beater, major?”
“No—it’s about the duke,” explained Edward. “It seems some of the fellows funk the thing—they think he’ll hear the guns—they want to go to church instead, or something of that sort.”
Augustine Torr, M.P., looked at his brother inquiringly. The tie of blood between them was obvious enough. They were both slender as well as tall; their small round heads merging indistinguishably behind into flat, broad necks, seemed identical in contour; they had the same light coarse hair, the same florid skins, even the same little yellow mustaches. The differences were harder to seek. Edward, though he had borne Her Majesty’s commission for some years, was not so well set up about the shoulders as his younger and civilian brother. Augustine, on the other hand, despite his confident carriage of himself, produced the effect of being Edward’s inferior in simple force of character. It was at once to his credit and his disparagement that he had the more amiable nature of the two.
“How do you mean—the duke?” he asked. “Is there a change?”
Edward put out his closed lips a little, and shook his head. Major Pirie sprinkled salt on his muffin while he explained.
“All there is of it is this,” he said. “There was just an idea that with the—with your grandfather—dyin’ in the house—it might look a little better to give the first the go-by. Nobody’d have a word to say against shootin’ to-morrow.”
“Well, but what the hell”—Augustine groped his way with hesitancy—“I don’t understand—we’ve been shootin’ partridges for a month, and how are pheasants any different? And as for the duke—why, of course one’s sorry and all that—but he’s been dyin’ since June, and the birds have some rights—or rather, I should say—what I mean is—”