“I am sure you didn’t want us, father,” said the sturdy Peggy; “so you needn’t make a fuss.”
Colonel Marchant gave his youngest born a withering scowl, but took no further notice of her contumacy.
“Pray sit down, Mr. Vansittart, and take a cup of tea before you tramp home again. You must be a good walker to make so light of that long road—for I suppose you came by the road.”
“I am country bred, Colonel Marchant, and am pretty well used to tramping about, on foot or on horseback.”
“Ah, you live near Liss, Eve told me. Have you good hunting thereabouts?”
Vansittart mentioned three or four packs of hounds accessible from his part of the country.
“Ah,” sighed the Colonel, “you young men think nothing of prodigious rides to cover, and long railway journeys. You hunt with the Vine from Basingstoke—with the Hambledon from Bishop’s Waltham! You are tearing about the country all November and December, I have no doubt?”
“Indeed, Colonel, I am not so keen a sportsman as you appear to think. A couple of days a week content me, while there are any birds to shoot in my covers.”
“Ah, two days’ hunting and four days’ shooting. I understand. That is what an Englishman’s life should be, if he lives on his estate. Sir Hubert tells me you have travelled a good deal?”
“I have wandered about the Continent, on the beaten paths. I cannot call myself a traveller, in the modern acceptation of the word. I have never shot lions in Africa, nor have I ever bivouacked among the hill-tribes in Upper India, nor risked my life, like Burton, in a pilgrimage to Mecca.”