"Perhaps. I confess I got a little bit tired of it; but no doubt the poor fellow was doing his best to make up for the want of birds. However, we started again after luncheon. And now we came to place after place where his lordship had performed the most wonderful feats last year. And, mind you, the dog wasn't ranging so wild now; if there had been the ghost of a shadow of a feather in the whole district we must have seen it. Then we came to another well where his lordship used to stop for a drink. Then we arrived at a crest where no one who had ever shot on the moor had ever failed to get a brace or two. A brace or two! What we flushed was a covey of sheep that flew like mad things down the hill. Well, Donald gave in at last. He could not find words to express his astonishment. His lordship had never come along that highest ridge without getting at least two or three shots. And when I set out for home, he still stuck to it; he would not let me take the cartridges out of my gun; he assured me his lordship never failed to get a snipe or a blackcock on the way home. Confound his lordship!"
"And is that all the story?" says the young lady, with her eyes wide open.
"Yes, it is," says he, with a tragic gloom on the handsome face.
"You have not brought home a single bird?"
"Not a feather!—never saw one."
"Nor even a rabbit?'
"Nary rabbit!"
"Why, Fred was up here a short time ago, wanting a few birds for the yacht."
"Oh, indeed," says he, with a sombre contempt. "Perhaps he will go and ask his lordship for them. In the meantime, I'm going in to dress for dinner. I suppose his lordship would do that, too, after having shot his thirty brace."
"You must not, any way," she says. "There is to be no dressing for dinner to-day; we are all going down to the yacht after."