quarter—or had the hunter's hunger really got hold of him? On the evening before the appointed raid, even the foresters looked glum; the western hills were ominous and angry, and the wind that came howling down the strath seemed to foretell a storm. But he was not to be daunted; he said he would give up only when Roderick assured him that the expedition was quite impracticable and useless.
"I hear you are going after the deer to-morrow," said the pretty Miss Georgie Lestrange to him, in the drawing-room after dinner, while Lady Sybil was performing her famous fantasia "The Voices of the Moonlight," to which nobody listened but her own admiring self. "And I was told all about that custom of making the stalker a little present on his setting out, for good-luck. It was Honnor Cunyngham who did that for you last time, and I think it should be my turn to-morrow morning."
"Oh, thank you!" said he; but "Thank you for nothing!" he said in his heart; for why should any frivolous trinket—even when presented by this very charming and complaisant young damsel—be allowed to interfere with the prerogative of Miss Cunyngham's sacred talisman?
"I say," continued the bright-eyed, ruddy-haired lass, "what do you and Honnor Cunyngham talk about all day long, when you are away on those fishing excursions? Don't you bore each other to death? Oh, I know she's rather learned, though she doesn't bestow much of her knowledge upon us. Well, I'm not going to say anything against Honnor, for she's so awfully good-natured, you know; she allows her sisters-in-law to experiment on her as an audience, and she has always something friendly and nice to say, though I can guess what she thinks of it all. Now, what do you two talk about all day long?"
"Well, there's the fishing," said he, "for one thing."
"Oh, don't tell me!" exclaimed this impertinent young hussy (while "The Voices of the Moonlight" moaned and mourned their mysterious regrets and despairs at the far end of the drawing-room). "Don't tell me! Honnor Cunyngham is far too good-looking for you to go talking salmon to her all day long. Very handsome I call her; don't you? She's so distinguished, somehow—so different from any one else. Of course you don't notice it up here so much, where she prides herself on roughing it—you never met her in London?—in London you should see
her come into a drawing-room—her walk and manner are simply splendid. She'll never marry," continued this garrulous little person, with the coquettish pince-nez perched on her not too Grecian nose. "I'm sure she won't. She despises men—all of them except her brother, Sir Hugh. Lord Rockminster admires her tremendously, but he's too lazy to say so, I suppose. How has she taken such a fancy to you?"
"I was not aware she had," Lionel discreetly made answer, though the question had startled him, and not with pain.
"Oh, yes, she has. Did she think you were lone and unprotected, being persecuted by the rest of us? I am quite certain she wouldn't allow my brother Percy to go fishing a whole day with her; most likely Lord Rockminster wouldn't care to take the trouble. I wonder if she hasn't a bit of a temper? Lady Rosamund is awful sometimes; but she doesn't show that to you—catch her! But Honnor Cunyngham—well, the only time I ever went with her on one of her storking expeditions, the water was low, and she thrashed away for hours, and saw nothing. At last a stot happened to come wandering along; and she said, quite savagely, 'I'm going to hook something!' You don't know what a stot is?—it's a young bullock. So she deliberately walked to within twenty yards or so of the animal, threw the line so that it just dropped across its neck, and the fly caught in the thick hair. You should have seen the gay performance that followed! The beast shook its head and shook its head—for it could feel the line, if it couldn't feel the fly; and then, getting alarmed, it started off up the hill, with the reel squealing just as if a salmon were on, and Honnor running after him as hard as she could over the bracken and heather. If it were rage made her hook the stot, she was laughing now—laughing so that when the beast stopped she could hardly reel in the line. And old Robert—I thought he would have had a fit. 'Will I gaff him now, Miss Honnor?' he cried, as he came running along. But the stot didn't mean to be gaffed. Off it set again; and Honnor after it, until at last it caught the line in a birch-bush and broke it; then, just as if nothing had happened, it began to graze, as usual. You should have seen the game that began then—old Robert and Honnor trying to get hold of the stot, so as to take the casting-line and the fly from its mane—it isn't a mane, but you know—and the stot trying to butt them whenever they
came near. The end of it was that the beast shook off the fly for itself, and old Robert found it; but I wonder whether it were real rage that made Honnor Cunyngham hook the stot—"