Captain Frank was everything and did everything that his parents could have hoped for, except in one direction: he would have nothing said about marriage. He came home without a murmur; he never uttered a word of regret about his giving up a profession that he had fair hopes of advancement in; he adopted his new set of duties with cheerfulness, and entered with zest into the festivities of the season. For the leaf was beginning to fall, and all the people about were preparing to shoot the covers, so that parties had to be made up and invitations issued, and there soon came to be a general stir throughout the countryside. Captain Frank, though he was not much of a shot, took his share in all these things; but he held aloof from womankind, and would not have his marriage even spoken of by his most intimate relatives.
What was the man made of that he could resist a scene like this? Imagine an open glade in a beautiful Wiltshire wood on the morning after a slight fall of snow. The skies are blue, and the world is full of clear sunlight; the hollies are intensely green over the white of the snow; here and there on the bare branches are a few red leaves. Also on the snow itself there is a stain of brownish red in some places, where the light air of the morning has shaken down withered needles from a tall pine-tree. Then there is a distant, sharp flutter; the noise increases; suddenly a beautiful thing—a meteor of bronze and crimson—comes whirring along at a tremendous pace; Captain Frank blazes away with one barrel and misses; before he knows where he is the pheasant seems a couple of miles off in the silver and blue of the sky, and he does not care to send the second barrel on a roving commission. He puts his gun over his shoulder, and returns to his pensive contemplation of the glittering green hollies, and the white snow, and the maze of bare branches going up into the blue.
But a new figure appears in the midst of this English-looking scene. A very pretty young lady comes along smiling—her pink cheeks looking all the pinker, and her blue eyes all the bluer, because of the white snow and also the white fur round her neck. This is pretty Mary Coventry, who is staying at present at Kingscourt. She has the brightest of smiles, and the whitest of teeth.
'Cousin Frank,' she says, 'where do you gentlemen lunch to-day?'
'Look here,' he answers, 'you've come right up the line between the guns and the beaters.'
'Oh, that's all right,' she says, gaily. 'I know your father doesn't allow shooting at ground game into cover.'
'Lunch is to be up at the Hill Farm.'
'Oh, that's the very thing. I want a long walk. And I will help
Higgins to have everything ready for you.'
'It will be very rough and tumble. You had much better go back home to lunch.'
'But I have come for the very purpose! I have brought sugar and cinnamon to mull the claret for you. You will find it scalding hot when you come.'