Grouse shot up from your feet with a "Rek-ek-ek-kek!" in sudden, explosive flight.
Plovers rose, wheeling round and round you with sharper and sharper cries of agitation. "Pee-vit—pee-vit—pee-vit! Pee-vitt!" They swooped, suddenly close, close to your eyes; you heard the drumming vibration of their wings.
Away in front a line of sheep went slowly up and up Karva. The hill made their bleating mournful and musical.
You slipped back into the house. In the lamp-lighted drawing-room the others sat, bored and tired, waiting for prayer-time. They hadn't noticed how long you had been gone.
XII.
"Roddy, I wish you'd go and see where your father is."
Roddy looked up from his sketch-book. He had filled it with pictures of cavalry on plunging chargers, trains of artillery rushing into battle, sailing ships in heavy seas.
Roddy's mind was possessed by images of danger and adventure.
He flourished off the last wave of battle-smoke, and shut the sketch-book with a snap.
Mamma knew perfectly well where Papa was. Roddy knew. Catty and Maggie the cook knew. Everybody in the village knew. Regularly, about six o'clock in the evening, he shuffled out of the house and along the High Row to the Buck Hotel, and towards dinner-time Roddy had to go and bring him back. Everybody knew what he went for.