'My overseer—steward.'
'Steward—the devil! and you have a fellow of that kind at table.'
'Mrs. Lindsay has—not I,' replied Roland, with growing confusion and annoyance. 'There are wheels within wheels here at Earlshaugh, Jack—a little time and you shall know all, even before the pheasants you disputed about are ready for potting.'
But before that period came, or the opportunity so lightly referred to, much was to happen at Earlshaugh that none could at all foresee.
CHAPTER XVIII.
'MY LOVE SHE'S BUT A LASSIE YET.'
The First of September came in all that could be wished for the shooting, in which, to Roland's disgust and Elliot's surprise, Hawkey Sharpe took a part, but attired in accurate sporting costume, and duly armed with an excellent breech-loader. The corn was yellow in some places, the stubble bare in others; there were rich 'bits' of colour in every field, and silver clouds floating in the blue expanse overhead. In such light, says a writer with an artistic eye, 'the white horses seem cut out of silver, the chestnuts of ruddy-gold; while the black horses stand out against the sky as if cut in black marble; and what gaps half a dozen reapers soon make in the standing corn!'
Then the trails of the ground convolvulus and cyanus or corn-flower, of every hue, may be seen, while the little gleaners are afield, tolerated by a good-hearted farmer, who, like Boaz of old, may, perhaps, permit the poor to glean 'even amongst the sheaves.' Elsewhere the fern and heather-covered muirlands were beautiful, with their tiny bushes laden with wild fruits, bramble, and sloe.
How the shooting progressed there—how coveys were flushed and surrounded; how the brown birds rose whirring up, and the cheepers tumbled over in quick succession or were caught by the dogs; how the latter found the birds lurking among turnips or potatoes, or where the uncut corn waved (for there they shelter, engender, and breed), till they rose in coveys of twenty and even thirty—may not interest the reader, so now we must hasten on to other points in our story, having more important matters to relate; but, as Mr. Hawkey Sharpe had an unpleasant reputation for shooting sometimes a little wildly, and forgetting the line of fire, all—by the whispered advice of old Fowler, the keeper—gave him a very wide berth in the field, and of this he was angrily conscious.
Yet he brought upon himself the irate animadversions of most of the sportsmen, and more particularly of Jack Elliot, by ill-using one of the best pointers on the ground. Trained by old Gavin Fowler, this animal would not only stand at the scent of a bird or a hare, but, if in company, would instantly back if he saw another dog point. This perfection, the propensity to stand at the scent of game, though a striking example of intelligence and docility, was so misunderstood by Hawkey Sharpe that he dealt poor Ponto a blow with the butt-end of his rifle, eliciting an oath from the white-haired keeper, and anger from all—remarks which made him clench his teeth with rage and mortification.