Major Stuart jumped to his feet with great alacrity, and warmly shook hands with the departing stranger. Then, when the door was shut, he went through a pantomimic expression of bringing down innumerable pheasants from every corner of the ceiling—with an occasional aim at the floor, where an imaginary hare was scurrying by.
"Macleod. Macleod," said he, "you are a trump. You may go on writing love-letters from now till next Monday afternoon. I suppose we will have a good dinner, too?"
"Beauregard is said to have the best chef in London; and I don't suppose they would leave so important a person in Ireland."
"You have my gratitude, Macleod—eternal, sincere, unbounded," the major said, seriously.
"But it is not I who am asking you to go and massacre a lot of pheasants," said Macleod; and he spoke rather absently, for he was thinking of the probable mood in which he would go down to Weatherill. One of a generous gladness and joy, the outward expression of an eager and secret happiness to be known by none? Or what if there were no red rose at all on her bosom when she advanced to meet him with sad eyes?
They went down into Essex next day. Major Stuart was surprised to find that his companion talked not so much about the price of machines for drying saturated crops as about the conjectural cost of living in the various houses they saw from afar, set amidst the leafless trees of November.
"You don't think of coming to live in England, do you?" said he.
"No—at least, not at present," Macleod said. "Of course; one never knows what may turn up. I don't propose to live at Dare all my life."
"Your wife might want to live in England," the major said, coolly.
Macleod started and stared.