The first portion of the day the Fettercairn party shot to points, and then to drivers, and in their fear of Shafto's wild shooting, the latter kept shouting while driving, and, as he loathed the whole thing, and was now 'completely blown—pumped out,' as he phrased it, he was not sorry when the magic word 'lunch' was uttered; and Hammersley certainly hailed it, for with the lunch came Finella, and with her arrival—to him—the most delightful part of the day.
She came tooling along the sunny pathway that traversed the bottom of a glen, driving with her tightly gauntleted and deft little hands a pair of beautiful white ponies, which drew the daintiest of basket-phaetons, containing also Mr. Grapeston and an ample luncheon-basket; and the place chosen for halting was a green oasis amid the dark heather, where a spring of deliciously cool water was bubbling up, called Finella's Well.
'Now, gentlemen,' said Lord Fettercairn, 'please to draw your cartridges. I was once nearly shot in this very place by a stupid fellow who omitted to do so. So glad you have come, Finella darling, we are all hungry as hawks, and thirsty too.'
Lovely indeed did the piquante girl look in her coquettish hat and well-fitting jacket, while the drive, the occasion, and the touch of Hammersley's hand as he assisted her to alight gave her cheek an unwonted colour, and lent fresh lustre to her dark eyes, and the soldier thought that certainly there was nothing in the world so pleasant to a man's eye as a young, well-dressed, and beautiful girl.
'You have had good sport,' said she to the group, while her eye rested on Hammersley, and then on the rows of grouse laid by braces on the grass; and she 'brought a breeze with her,' as the gentlemen thought, and had a pleasant remark for each. Her mode of greeting the members of the party was different, as to some she gave her hand like a little queen, while to others she smiled, or simply bowed; but provoked an angry snort from Shafto by expressing a hope that he 'had not shot anyone yet.'
And then he grew white as he recalled his angry thoughts of the preceding night.
'Why did you take the trouble to drive here?' he asked her, in a low voice.
'Because I chose to come; and I do so love driving these plump darlings of ponies,' replied the girl, patting the sleek animals with her tiny, slim hand.
'Old Grapeston would have done well enough; and why did you not bring one of the Kippilaw girls?'
'They are at lawn-tennis. If I thought I could please you—not an easy task—I should have tried to bring them all, though that is rather beyond the capacities of my phaeton.'