He choked with emotion. McTurk’s heel tapped the lawn and he stuttered a little—two sure signs that he was losing his temper. But why should he, the offender, be angry?
“Lo-look here, sir. Do—do you shoot foxes? Because, if you don’t, your keeper does. We’ve seen him! I do-don’t care what you call us—but it’s an awful thing. It’s the ruin of good feelin’ among neighbors. A ma-man ought to say once and for all how he stands about preservin’. It’s worse than murder, because there’s no legal remedy.” McTurk was quoting confusedly from his father, while the old gentleman made noises in his throat.
“Do you know who I am?” he gurgled at last; Stalky and Beetle quaking.
“No, sorr, nor do I care if ye belonged to the Castle itself. Answer me now, as one gentleman to another. Do ye shoot foxes or do ye not?”
And four years before Stalky and Beetle had carefully kicked McTurk out of his Irish dialect! Assuredly he had gone mad or taken a sunstroke, and as assuredly he would be slain—once by the old gentleman and once by the Head. A public licking for the three was the least they could expect. Yet—if their eyes and ears were to be trusted—the old gentleman had collapsed. It might be a lull before the storm, but—
“I do not.” He was still gurgling.
“Then you must sack your keeper. He’s not fit to live in the same county with a God-fearin’ fox. An’ a vixen, too—at this time o’ year!”
“Did ye come up on purpose to tell me this?”
“Of course I did, ye silly man,” with a stamp of the foot. “Would you not have done as much for me if you’d seen that thing happen on my land, now?”
Forgotten—forgotten was the College and the decency due to elders! McTurk was treading again the barren purple mountains of the rainy West coast, where in his holidays he was viceroy of four thousand naked acres, only son of a three-hundred-year-old house, lord of a crazy fishing-boat, and the idol of his father’s shiftless tenantry. It was the landed man speaking to his equal—deep calling to deep—and the old gentleman acknowledged the cry.