"Sheila," called Ingram, "have pity on an old man!"
Suddenly she stopped. A brace of partridges had sprung up at some distance, and with a wild whirr of their wings were now directing their low and rapid flight toward the bottom of the valley.
"What birds are those?" she said peremptorily.
She took no notice of the fact that her companions were pretty nearly too blown to speak. There was a brisk life and color in her face, and all her attention was absorbed in watching the flight of the birds. Lavender fancied he saw in the fixed and keen look something of old Mackenzie's gray eye: it was not the first trace of a likeness to her father he had seen.
"You bad girl!" he said, "they are partridges."
She paid no heed to this reproach, for what were those other things over there underneath the trees? Bras had pricked up his ears, and there was a strange excitement in his look and in his trembling frame.
"Deer!" she cried, with her eyes as fixed as were those of the dog beside her.
"Well," said her husband calmly, "what although they are deer?"
"But Bras--" she said; and with that she caught the leash with both her hands,
"Bras won't mind them if you keep him quiet. I suppose you can manage him better than I can. I wish we had brought a whip."