A third time the setter shows his imperfect training, by flushing a cock before the sportsmen are nigh enough to obtain a fair shot.
The blood sprung from Hyderabad can stand it no longer. It is hot even under the shadows of a winter wood in the Chilterns.
“I’ll teach the cur a lesson!” cries Nigel, leaning his gun against a tree, and taking a clasp-knife out of his pocket. “What you should have taught him long ago, Doggy Dick, if you’d half done your duty.”
“Lor, Muster Nigel,” replies the gamekeeper, to whom the apostrophe has been addressed, “I’ve whipped the animal till my arms ached. ’Tain’t no use. The steady ain’t in him.”
“I’ll put it into him, then!” cries the young Anglo-Indian, striding, knife in hand, towards the spaniel. “See if I don’t!”
“Stay, Nigel!” interposed Henry. “You are surely not going to do the dog an injury?”
“And what is it to you, if I am? He is mine—not yours.”
“Only, that I should think it very cruel of you. The fault may not be his, poor dumb brute. As you say, it may be Dick who is to blame, for not properly training him.”
“Thank’ee, Muster Henry! ’Bleeged to ye for yer compliment. In coorse it be all my doin’; tho’ not much thanks for doin’ my best. Howsoever, I’m obleeged to ye, Muster Henry.”
Doggy Dick, who, though young, is neither graceful nor good-looking, accompanies his rejoinder with a glance that bespeaks a mind still more ungraceful than his person.