"Three, for goodness’ sake keep count or we shan’t know where we are. Notice that last shot of mine, by the way? Sixty yards at least, and stone dead. No. Pity. Look out, there are more coming, straight to me as usual." Another right and left. "Oh, please be quicker. Damn, my guns are getting red hot. See these four coming? I’ll have ’em all, hanged if I don’t." Two double shots followed, and then a cry of exultation. "Done it, by the Lord! What price De Grey now? I told you I couldn’t miss. Only hope the others are looking, particularly old Persian War. Wish he was next me; I’d give a fiver to wipe his eye. How many down? Thirty I make it."
"Twenty-seven, Mr. Graeme, one a runner."
"Runner, not it. I’m not dealing in runners to-day. All dead as stones. There are two more for you," as a brace came swinging over and were promptly crumpled up dead in the air. "That makes twenty-nine by your counting, thirty-two by mine. Hang! here are the beaters, and the day’s over. How many down, Fox?" to a keeper who had now come up. "Thirty-two all dead."
"Gum, but that’s good shooting," answered Fox, while a murmur of approbation arose from a cluster of smock-frocked beaters. "Thought I saw someone a-cutting of ’em down, sir, and I said as ’ow I thought it must be the Captain. Only ’ope the other gentlemen ’ave done as well. Hi, Rover, seek lost, good dawg, good dawg. Ah, drop it, now, would you? Oh, thankye, sir, thankye very much," and the tactful Fox’s hand closed on a five-pound note, a golden sovereign being likewise bestowed on the cluster of approving smock-frocks.
The courtiers thus rewarded, Graeme turned to Lucy. "And now we’ll walk home across the park," he said; "no use waiting for the waggonette, what do you say, Miss Caldwell?"
"I don’t think I will, Mr. Graeme. You go if you like. I must get back to make the tea. You know what my uncle is, if he’s kept waiting."
"Do him good; he’s a great deal too autocratic that old uncle of yours; thinks he’s still commanding troops in Bugglaboo, or whatever his infernal Indian station was."
"Beg pardon, Miss Caldwell, but never mind him. Come along, we’ll be home as soon as they are if we start now."
Lucy hesitated. She wanted to go, and for that very reason, being a woman, pretended she did not. The idea, moreover, though pleasing, was nevertheless in some unaccountable way rather alarming; for though ordinarily a walk home with one of her father’s guests, however late the hour, would have caused her no qualms, with Graeme, it was different. She had known him but three weeks, and yet in that short time he had come to occupy a place in her thoughts, and, what was worse, to control her actions in a manner most disquieting to a girl as independent and freedom-loving as Lucy Caldwell. This too in spite of the fact that both her father and uncle, the General, had little liking for Mr. Graeme, and were, she knew, secretly rejoicing in the knowledge that he was leaving Radford Hall next day. Hector also was aware of this, and of the feelings of the rest of the house-party; but, having been accustomed to unpopularity since his childhood, their hostility disturbed him not at all.