Hew and Cecil were in this quarter, and a little in the rear was the keeper, the latter scanning the whole, as far as he well could, from flank to flank, rebuking from time to time, in his deep, broad Ayrshire Doric, any stupid beater who lagged behind, while the sharp crack of the guns woke the echoes of the dingles, which occasionally seemed to reply to quite an irregular volley.
Among the gorse the chief victims were ground game, but amid the coppice the ruddy golden-hued pheasants were momentarily flurried up, and arrested in their whirring flight by the crack of the fatal breechloader.
Ever and anon, the voice of the keeper was heard, with the prohibitory cry of—
''Ware hen—'ware hen, Master Hew!'
Among much other spoil, Cecil knocked over a fine cock-pheasant, which fell crashing down among the underwood in the agonies of death—a charge of shot in his gold-speckled breast.
'Why the deuce did you shoot my bird, sir?' demanded Hew with un courteous abruptness of Falconer.
'He thocht, perhaps, ye war gaun to miss it, as ye did the last twa, and the hare,' said the old keeper, drily.
'I beg your pardon,' replied Cecil quietly, as he reloaded; 'but that bird was mine.'
'It was not!' was the blunt and rude rejoinder.
Falconer coloured and bit his lip; but thought of his courtly old host, and desirous of avoiding a scene, simply said: