'I'm afraid Lady Mary does not like me,' he said, after his shot, which gave him time for reflection.
'Oh, Molly is rather farouche in her manners; never would train fine, don't you know. Her ladyship lectured till she was tired, and now Mary runs wild, and I suppose will be left at grass till six months before her presentation, and then they'll put her on the pillar-reins a bit to give her a better mouth. Good shot, by Jove!'
John Hammond was used to his lordship's style of conversation, and understood his friend at all times. Maulevrier was not an intellectual companion, and the distance was wide between the two men; but his lordship's gaiety, good-nature, and acuteness made amends for all shortcomings in culture. And then Mr. Hammond may have been one of those good Conservatives who do not expect very much intellectual power in an hereditary legislator.
CHAPTER VII.
IN THE SUMMER MORNING.
John Hammond loved the wild freshness of morning, and was always eager to explore a new locality; so he was up at five o'clock next morning, and out of doors before six. He left the sophisticated beauty of the Fellside gardens below him, and climbed higher and higher up the Fell, till he was able to command a bird's-eye view of the lake and village, and just under his feet, as it were, Lady Maulevrier's favourite abode. He was provided with a landscape glass which he always carried in his rambles, and with the aid of this he could see every stone of the building.
The house, added to at her ladyship's pleasure, and without regard to cost, covered a considerable extent of ground. The new part consisted of a straight range of about a hundred and twenty feet, facing the lake, and commandingly placed on the crest of a steepish slope; the old buildings, at right angles with the new, made a quadrangle, the third and fourth sides of which were formed by the dead walls of servants' rooms and coach-houses, which had no windows upon this inner enclosed side. The old buildings were low and irregular, one portion of the roof thatched, another tiled. In the quadrangle there was an old-fashioned garden, with geometrical flower-beds, a yew tree hedge, and a stone sun-dial in the centre. A peacock stalked about in the morning light, and greeted the newly risen sun with a discordant scream. Presently a man came out of a half glass door under a verandah which shaded one side of the quadrangle, and strolled about the garden, stopping here and there to cut a dead rose, or trim a geranium, a stoutly-built broad shouldered man, with gray hair and beard, the image of well-fed respectability.
Mr. Hammond wondered a little at the man's leisurely movements as he sauntered about, whistling to the peacock. It was not the manner of a servant who had duties to perform—rather that of a gentleman living at ease, and hardly knowing how to get rid of his time.