“No, Thoms—no, my good fellaw! There must be no woodness. Wemember, we are guests heaw, and Mount Welcome is not an hotel. Yaw must work by stwategy, not stwength, as Shakespeaw or some other of those skwibbling fellaws has said. No doubt stwategy will win the day.”
And with this ambiguous observation—ambiguous as to whether it referred to the issue of Thoms’s embassy, or his own success in the wooing of Miss Vaughan—Mr Montagu Smythje closed the conversation.
Thoms now gave the last touch to the sportsman’s toilet, by setting the hunting-cap on his head, and hanging numerous belts over his shoulders—among which were included a shot-pouch, a copper powder-horn, a pewter drinking flask with its cup, and a hunting-knife in its leathern sheath.
Thus equipped, the sportsman strode stiffly from the apartment; and wended his way towards the great hall, evidently with the design of encountering the fair Kate, and exhibiting himself in his killing costume.
Volume Two—Chapter Two.
A Cockney Sportsman.
That he had obtained the interview he sought, and that its result had gratified him, might be inferred from the complacent smile that played upon his countenance as he sallied forth from the house. Moreover, in crossing the two or three hundred yards of open ground which separated the dwelling from the wooded slope of the ridge, he walked with an exalted, gingerly step—occasionally glancing back over his shoulder, as if conscious of being observed.
He was observed. Two faces could be seen at a window, one of which Mr Smythje knew to be that of Kate Vaughan. The other, of darker hue, was the face of the maid Yola.