“He has a great deal of Gaelic,” said Archie: “he writes things in papers about poetry and stuff. He discourses to me sometimes, but I never mind.”
“Then you don’t care for poetry and stuff?”
“How should I, in Gaelic, which I don’t understand?” The conversation, however, was thus getting upon general topics, which Archie eschewed, and he suddenly awoke to the danger of being drawn into a tête-à-tête with his stepmother. “The dogues will be spoiling your dress, and a bother to you.”
“I have never confessed to your father,” she said, “that I am very fond of dogs. I don’t think he likes them. Suppose you and I set up a little kennel of our own. You will want dogs for the shooting when the time comes, and I have not seen one about the place.”
“No, there are none. Gilmour—that’s the gamekeeper—has two or three. He says there’s a good deal of shooting,” said Archie, led out of himself by the interest of this subject, about which he had gleaned a little further information. It excited and charmed the lad, for he was full of eagerness to do things like other young men of his age, but afraid to show his ignorance to begin with.
“Your father has not said much about it. He is not a shooting man, you know. You will have to go out with the gamekeeper and bring us our first grouse.”
“I’ll not bring in many grouse,” he said almost under his breath.
“You are not a good shot? Never mind: you are young enough to mend that. The great thing is to keep cool and not get flurried, I believe.”
“Oh, I don’t suppose lassies”—he corrected himself quickly with a violent blush—“ladies know much about it.”
“Perhaps not,” said Evelyn, “but my father was one of the best shots in Northamptonshire. It is not a very great distinction,” she added with a smile. “I could quite forgive a man for not shooting at all.”