"It is a long story," says the Youth. "Will it bore you to hear it? I've seen how the women in a country house dread the beginning of the talk at dinner about the day's shooting; and yet give themselves up, like the martyrs and angels they are; and—and it is very different from hunting, don't you know, for there the women can talk as much as anybody."
"Oh! but I should like to hear, really," says she. "It was so kind of a stranger on board a steamer to offer you a day's shooting."
"Well, it was," says he; "and the place has been shot over only once—on the 12th. Very well; you shall hear the whole story. I met the keeper by appointment, down at the quay. I don't know what sort of a fellow he is—Highlander or Lowlander—I am not such a swell at those things as my uncle is; but I should have said he talked a most promising mixture of Devonshire, Yorkshire, and Westmoreland——"
"What was his name?"
"I don't know," says the other leisurely. "I called him Donald, on chance; and he took to it well enough. I confess I thought it rather odd he had only one dog with him—an old retriever; but then, don't you know, the moor had been shot over only once; and I thought we might get along. As we walked along to the hill, Donald says, 'Dinna tha mind, sir, if a blackcock gets up; knock un ower, knock un ower, sir.'"
At this point Miss Avon most unfairly bursts out laughing.
"Why," she says, "what sort of countryman was he if he talked like that? That is how they speak in plays about the colliery districts."
"Oh, it's all the same!" says the young man, quite unabashed. "I gave him my bag to carry, and put eight or ten cartridges in my pockets. 'A few mower, sir; a few mower, sir,' says Donald; and crams my pockets full. Then he would have me put cartridges in my gun even before we left the road; and as soon as we began to ascend the hill I saw he was on the outlook for a straggler or two, or perhaps a hare. But he warned me that the shooting had been very bad in these districts this year; and that on the 12th the rain was so persistent that scarcely anybody went out. Where could we have been on the 12th? surely there was no such rain with us?"
"But when you are away from the hills you miss the rain," remarks this profound meteorologist.
"Ah! perhaps so. However, Donald said, 'His lordship went hout for an hour, and got a brace and a alf. His lordship is no keen for a big bag, ye ken; but is just satisfied if he can get a brace or a couple of brace afore luncheon. It is the exerceez he likes.' I then discovered that Lord —— had had this moor as part of his shooting last year; and I assured Donald I did not hunger after slaughter. So we climbed higher and higher. I found Donald a most instructive companion. He was very great on the ownership of the land about here; and the old families, don't you know; and all that kind of thine. I heard a lot about the MacDougalls, and how they had all their possessions confiscated in 1745; and how, when the Government pardoned them, and ordered the land to be restored, the Campbells and Breadalbane, into whose hands it had fallen, kept all the best bits for themselves. I asked Donald why they did not complain; he only grinned; I suppose they were afraid to make a row. Then there was one MacDougall, an admiral or captain, don't you know; and he sent a boat to rescue some shipwrecked men, and the boat was swamped. Then he would send another; and that was swamped, too. The Government, Donald informed me, wanted to hang him for his philanthropy; but he had influential friends; and he was let off on the payment of a large sum of money—I suppose out of what Argyll and Breadalbane had left him."