"Yes. Which way have they gone—can you tell me?"
"Same gait as ever, sir. Joe have druv 'em down agin the fenny pasture, arter milkin' up hinder."
"Ah! but the gentlemen, not the cows."
"The gentlemen, is it? Maybe if ye look in their beds ye'll see 'em this time o' day."
Heaving a mighty sigh, I leave the dairymaid, and stroll up and down the garden, listening with increasing impatience to the distant call of the partridges in the park. Nature at Downcharge Hall that morning was at all events beautifully still; there was a slight mist, too, gradually clearing off from the distance, which betokened very surely a broiling day, and made me long the more to get our seven or eight brace before the mid-day heat should come upon us. My longings and reflections, however, were suddenly cut short by a pitying butler, who had brought me out the Times, with the remark that "Master and the young gentlemen seldom has their breakfasts before ten." This was cheerful; however, I consoled myself with the paper, and just as I had finished discovering who was born, married, or dead, and had commenced reading the entreaties to return to afflicted initial letters, &c., &c., Dick's terrier entered the room, the forerunner of his master, who, remarking on my actually being an earlier bird than himself, was followed, in the course of about twenty minutes, by the others.
"I suppose we shoot to-day: where shall we begin?" asks Tom.
"Oh! we will shoot up from Brinkhill," answers the Squire.
"Brinkhill—two miles;—must have a trap," says Jack.
The two-mile walk used to be part of the order of the day; it gave us a little time for conversation, prohibited from its conclusion till lunch; it braced one up, and made one, in sporting phraseology, "fit"; but nowadays a carriage is necessary, and the young Nimrod is unequal to any fatigue beyond that which he must necessarily undergo in pursuit of his game. However, we are late, so I can't object to it; and, burning my throat in my hasty disposal of my second cup of coffee, I rush upstairs to get ready my trusty Westley Richards, which, by the way, is a muzzle-loader, yet does not take so long to load as to require a man behind me with a second gun. Five minutes, and fully equipped I re-enter the breakfast-room, where I am astonished to find my "get-up" creates unfeigned amazement.
"What! ready now!" says Tom; "what's the use of being in such a hurry?—let's do a pipe and a game of billiards first."