"What o'clock is it, Mr. Moore?" said Miss Honnor—but she seemed pleased with the result of this brisk encounter.

He looked at his watch.

"Half-past seven," he said.

"Yes; I thought I heard the first bell; we must make haste home. Not but that my sisters are very good to me," she continued, as she took the fly that Robert handed her and stuck it in her Tam o' Shanter; "if I happen to have got hold of a fish, I am allowed to come in to dinner anyhow. And then, you know, there is no great ceremony at this bungalow of a place; it's different at the Braes, if Lady Adela happens to have a large house-party—then I have to behave like other folk. What do you say, Robert—seven pounds? Well, he made a good fight of it. And I'm glad not to be going home empty-handed."

So Lionel picked up her waterproof and put it over his arm; she shouldered her fishing-rod, after having reeled in the line; the handsome old gillie brought up the rear with the gaff and the slung grilse; and thus equipped the three of them set out for the lodge—across the wide valley that was now all russet and golden under the warm light still lingering in the evening skies.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE TWELFTH.

When Lionel went down early next morning, he found Lady Adela's father in sole possession; and was not long in discovering that the old earl was in a towering rage.

"Good-morning!" said this tall, pale, stooping-shouldered old gentleman, whose quite hairless face was surmounted by a brown wig. "Well, what do you think of last night's performance? What do you think of it? Did you ever know of any such gross outrage on common decency? Why, God bless my soul and body, I never heard of such a thing!"

Lionel knew quite well what he meant. The fact was that a Free Church minister whom Sir Hugh Cunyngham had met somewhere had called at Aivron Lodge; as the custom of that part of the country is, he was invited to stay to dinner; he sat late, told many stories, and drank a good deal of whiskey, until it was not judged prudent to let him try to get his pony across the ford, even if hospitality had not demanded that he should be offered a room for the night; and then, when every one was thinking of getting away to bed, the worthy man must needs insist on having family worship, to which the servants had also to be summoned. It was the inordinate length of this service at such a time of night that had driven old Lord Fareborough to the verge of madness.

"Look at me!" he said to Lionel, in tones of deep and bitter indignation. "Look at me—a skeleton—a wreck of a human being, who can only get along by the most careful nursing of his nervous system. My heart is affected; I have serious doubts about the state of my lungs? it is only through the most assiduous nursing of my nerves that I exist at all. And what is more maddening than enforced restraint—imprisonment—no chance of leaving the room, with all those strange servants at the door; why, God bless my soul, I call it an outrage! I yield to no one in respect for the cloth, whether it is worn by a Presbyterian, or a Catholic, or one of my own church; but I say that no one has a right to thrust religious services down my throat! What the devil did Cunyngham mean by asking him to stay to dinner at all?"

"As I understand it," said Lionel, with a becoming diffidence, "it was some suggestion of Captain Waveney's. He said the Free Church ministers were particular friends of the crofters—and of course the good-will of the crofters is of importance to a shooting-tenant—"

"The good-will of the crofters!" the bewigged old nobleman broke in, impatiently. "Are you aware, sir, that the Strathaivron Branch of the Land League met last week and passed a resolution declaring salmon to be ground-game? What are you to do with people like that? How are you to reason with them? What is the use of pacifying them? They are in the hands of violent and malevolent revolutionaries—it is war they want—it is 1789 they want—it is plunder and robbery and confiscation they want—and the right of every man to live idle at the cost of the state! Why, God bless my soul! the idea that you are to try to pacify these ignorant savages—"

But here Lionel, who began to fancy that he had discovered another Octavius Quirk, was afforded relief; for the minister himself appeared; and at the very sight of him Lord Fareborough indignantly quitted the room. The minister, who was a rather irascible-looking little man with a weather-reddened face and rusty whiskers, inquired of Lionel whether it was possible to procure a glass of milk; but when Lionel rang the bell and had some brought for him, the minister observed that milk by itself was a dangerous thing in the morning; whereupon the butler had to be sent for, who produced the spirit-decanter; and then, and finally, the minister, boldly discarding the milk altogether, poured out for himself a good solid dram, and drank it off with much evident satisfaction.

Now the ladies began to make their appearance, some of them going along to the gun-room to hear what the head keeper had to say, others of them trooping out by the front door to guess at the weather. Among the latter was Miss Honnor Cunyngham; and Lionel, who had followed her, went up to her.

"A beautiful morning, isn't it?" he said.

"I'm afraid it's too beautiful," said she, in reply. "Look up there."

And she was right. This was far too picturesque and vivid a morning to portend well for a shooting-day. Down at the farther end of the strath, the skies were banked up with dark and heavy clouds; the lake-like sweep of the river was of a sombre and livid blue; and between the indigo stream and the purple skies, a long neck of land, catching the sunlight, burned the most brilliant gold. And even as they stood and looked, a faint gray veil gradually interposed between them and the distant landscape; a rainbow slowly formed, spanning the broad valley; and then behind the fairy curtain of the shower they could see the yellow river-banks, and the birchwoods, and the farther-stretching hills all vaguely and spectrally shining in the sun.

"But this is a very peculiar glen," said she. "It often threatens like that when it means nothing. You may get a perfectly dry, still day after all. And, Mr. Moore, may I ask you if what you said about your shooting yesterday afternoon was entirely true or only a bit of modesty?"

"If it comes to that," he said, "I never shot a grouse in my life—no, nor ever shot at one."

"Because," she continued, with a certain hesitation which was indeed far removed from her usual manner, "because you—you seem rather sensitive to criticism—to other people's opinion—and if you wouldn't think it impertinent of me to offer you some hints—well, for what they are worth—"

"But I should be immensely grateful!" he answered at once.

"Well," she said, in an undertone, so that no one should overhear, "you know, on the Twelfth, with such still weather as we have had for the last week or two, the birds are never wild; you needn't be in the least anxious; you won't be called upon for snap-shots at all; you can afford to take plenty of time and get well on to the birds before you fire. You see, you will be in the middle; you will take any bird that gets up in front of you; my brother and Captain Waveney will take the outside ones and the awkward cross-shots. And if a covey gets up all at once, they won't expect you to pick out the old cock first; they'll do all that; in fact, you must put yourself at your ease, and not be anxious, and everything will be right."

"Honnor!" called Lady Adela, "Come away at once—breakfast is in." So that Lionel had no proper opportunity of thanking the young lady for her friendly counsel and the interest she took in his small affairs.

Breakfast was a merry meal; for, as soon as the things had been brought in, the servants were allowed to leave; and while Lady Adela poured out the tea and coffee, the gentlemen carved for themselves at the sideboard or handed round the dishes at table. The Rev. Mr. MacNachten, the little Free Church minister, was especially vivacious and humorous, abounding with facetious anecdotes and jests and personal reminiscences; until, observing that breakfast was over, he composed his countenance and proceeded to return thanks. The grace (in spite of Lord Fareborough's nervous qualms) was comparatively a short one; and at the end of it they all rose and were for going their several ways.

But this was not to the minister's mind.

"Your leddyship," said he, addressing his hostess in impressive tones, "it would be ill done of us to be assembled on such an occasion without endeavoring to make profitable use of it. I propose to say a few words in season, if ye will have the kindness to call in the servants."

Lady Adela glanced towards her husband with some apprehension on her face (for she knew the importance attached to the morning of the Twelfth); but whatever Sir Hugh may have thought, he made no sign. Accordingly there was nothing for it but that she should ring the bell and summon the whole household; and in a few minutes the door of the room was surrounded by a group of Highland women-servants and gillies, the English servants rather hanging back in the hall. The breakfast-party had resumed their seats; but the minister remained standing; and presently, when perfect silence had been secured, he lifted up his voice in prayer.

Well, it was a sufficiently earnest prayer, and it was listened to with profound attention by the smart-looking lasses and tall and swarthy gillies clustering about the door; but to the English part of his audience its chief features were its curiously exhortatory and argumentative character and also its interminable length. As the minister went on and on, the frown of impatience on Lord Fareborough's face deepened and deepened; he fretted and fumed and fidgeted; but, of course, he could not bring disgrace on his son-in-law's house by rising and leaving the room. Nor did it convey much consolation to the sportsmen to hear the heavy tramp of the head keeper just outside the windows; for they knew that Roderick must be making use of the most frightful language over this unheard-of delay.

But at last this tremendous oration—for it was far more of an oration than a prayer—came to an end; and the congregation drew a long breath and were about to seize their newly found liberty when the minister quietly remarked:

"We will now sing the Hundred and Twenty-First Psalm."

"God bless my soul!" exclaimed Lord Fareborough, aloud; and Lady Adela flushed quickly; for it was not seemly of her father to give way to such anger before those keen-eyed and keen-eared Highland servants.

However, the Rev. Mr. MacNachten took no heed. He began to sing, in a slow and raucous fashion, and to the melancholy tune of "Ballerma,"

"'I to the hills will lift mine eyes, From whence doth come mine aid;'"

and presently there came from the door a curious nasal wail, men and women singing in unison, and seemingly afraid to trust their voices. As for the people in the room no one tried to join in this part of the service—no one except Honnor Cunyngham, who appeared to know the words of the Psalm and the music equally well, for she accompanied the minister throughout, singing boldly and simply and without shyness, her clear voice making marked contrast with his raven notes. Nor was this all; for, when the Psalm was finished, the minister said,

"My friends, when it hath pleased the Lord that we should meet together, we should commune one with another, to the perfecting of ourselves for that greater assemblage to which I hope we are all bound." And then, without further preface, he proceeded to exhort them to well-doing in all the duties of life—as masters and mistresses, as servants, as parents, as children, as brothers, as fellow-Christians; while at the end of each rambling and emphatic passage there came in a verse from Ecclesiastes: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man."

Alas! there was no conclusion to this matter. The little, violent-faced minister warmed to his work, insomuch that several times he used a Gaelic phrase the better to impress those patient listeners at the door, while he paid less and less attention to the congregation in the room. Indeed, the hopeless resignation that had at first settled down on some of their faces had given place to a most obvious resentment; but what did that matter to Mr. MacNachten, who was not looking their way? Again and again Sir Hugh Cunyngham forlornly pulled out his watch, but the hint was not taken. Lord Fareborough was beside himself with unrest; he drummed his fingers on the table-cloth; he crossed one leg, and then the other; while more than once he made a noise between his tongue and his teeth, which fortunately could not be heard far amid the rolling periods of the sermon. Captain Waveney, who was master of the ceremonies in all that concerned the shooting—even as he was Sir Hugh's right-hand man in the matter of cattle-breeding at the Braes—on several occasions, when a momentary pause occurred, jumped to his feet as if on the assumption that the discourse was finished; but this ruse was quite ineffectual, for the preacher took no notice of him. And meanwhile the huge figure of Roderick Munro could be seen marching up and down outside the windows, while a pair of wrathful eyes glared in from time to time; and Lady Adela, noticing these baleful glances, began to hope that the irate head keeper would not secretly instruct a gillie to go and throw the minister into the river as he was crossing the ford on his way home.

"May God forgive the scoundrel!" cried Lord Fareborough, when, the long sermon at length being over and the small crowd allowed to disperse, he was free to hasten along to the gun-room to get his boots. "And I am expected to shoot after having my nerves tortured like this! Who are going with me? Rockminster and Lestrange? Well, they must understand that I will not be hurried and flurried—I say I will not be hurried and flurried. I don't want to fall down dead—my heart won't recover this morning's work for months to come? God bless my soul, who asked that insolent scoundrel to stay the night? And what's that, Waveney—the ladies coming out to lunch? The ladies coming out to lunch on the Twelfth—and the day half over; they must be out of their senses!"

"That is the arrangement," Captain Waveney said, with rather a rueful laugh, as he, too, was lacing up his boots. "Lady Rosamund is going to take a sketch of the luncheon-party."

"Let her take a sketch of the devil!" said this very angry and inconsiderate papa. "Why can't she do it some other day?—why the Twelfth? Good heavens! is everything conspiring to vex and annoy me so that I sha'n't be able to hit a haystack?"

"Sir Hugh never says 'no' to anything that Lady Rosamund asks," observed Captain Waveney, with much good-humor.

"Sir Hugh be—" And here Lord Fareborough expressed a wish about his son-in-law and host that was probably only a figure of speech.

"Well, I don't know about that," the other replied, complacently, as he went to the couch and removed the cloth laid over the guns to protect them from the fine peat-dust (for a huge peat-fire burned continuously in this great gun-room, for the drying of garments brought home wet from the shooting or fishing). "I don't know about that; but at present the arrangement is that we lunch at the top of the Bad Step; and I believe that Miss Cunyngham is coming back from the Junction Pool, so that Lady Rosamund may have her sketch complete."

Indeed, this untoward incident of the minister's misplaced zeal seemed to throw a certain gloom over the small party to which Lionel soon found himself attached, as it moved away from the house. The tall, brown-bearded head keeper was in a sullen rage, though he could only reveal his wrath in sharp little sentences of discontent. Sir Hugh had also been put out at losing the best part of the morning; and Captain Waveney, who was a dapper little man, full of brisk spirits, did not care to talk to silent persons. As for Lionel, he was certainly very nervous and anxious; but none the less resolved to remember and act upon Honnor Cunyngham's advice. The tail of the procession was brought up by a gillie leading, or rather holding in, two brace of remarkably handsome Gordon setters, and another gillie in charge of a patient-eyed pony with a couple of panniers slung over its back.

However, the busy work of the day soon banished these idle regrets. When they had climbed a bit of the hillside, and passed through a gate in a rude stone wall, they stopped for a second to put cartridges in their guns; the keeper had two of the dogs uncoupled; while the gillie, putting a strap on the coupling of the other two, led them away to a convenient knoll, where he lay down, the gillie with the pony following his example. And scarcely had the two dogs begun to work this open bit of moorland when one of them suddenly ceased its wide ranging—suddenly as if it had been turned to stone; and then slowly, slowly it began to draw forward, its companion, a younger dog, backing beautifully and looking on with startled, watchful eyes. It was an anxious moment for the famous young baritone of the New Theatre; for the dog was right in front of him; and as the three guns, in line, stealthily moved forward, he made sure that this bird was going to get up just before him. Despite all his resolve to be perfectly cool and calm, his heart was beating quickly; and again and again he was repeating to himself Honnor Cunyngham's counsel, and wondering whether he would disgrace himself at the very outset, when some bewildering brown thing sprang from the ground, there was a terrific whir, a crack from Captain Waveney's gun—and away along there the grouse came tumbling down into the heather. Almost at the same moment there was another appalling whir on his right—followed by a bang from Sir Hugh's gun—and another bird fell headlong. After the briefest pause for reloading, the setter, that had obediently dropped at the first shot, was encouraged to go forward, the guns warily following. But it turned out that this had been an outlying brace of birds; the dogs were soon ranging freely again; Roderick picked up the slain grouse, and the whole party went on.

"Sorry you didn't get the first shot, Mr. Moore," said Sir Hugh, who was a short, thick-set man, with a fresh-colored face, iron-gray hair, and keen, light-blue eyes.

"I wish the birds would all rise to you two," Lionel said. "Then I shouldn't have to pitch into myself for missing."

"Oh, you'll soon get into the way of it," Sir Hugh said, good-naturedly. "There's never much doing along this face."

"I'll bet Bruce is on to something," Captain Waveney exclaimed, suddenly. In fact, only one of the ranging setters was now in sight; and Roderick had quickly run up to the top of a heathery knoll, to have them both in view. At the same moment they saw him hold up his arm to warn the inattentive Venus.

"How, Venus! How, Venus!" he called, in a low voice; and immediately the dog, observing that its companion was drawing on to a point, became rigid.

The guns were on the scene directly; and they were just in time; for, with a simultaneous rattle of wings that seemed to fill the air, a small covey of birds sprang from the heather and appeared to vanish into space. At least Lionel saw nothing of the others; his attention was concentrated on one that seemed to be flying away in a straight line from him; and after pausing for half a second (during which he was calling on himself to be cool) he pulled the trigger. To his inexpressible satisfaction the bird stopped in mid-air and came down with a thump on the heather, where it gave but one flutter and then lay still. He turned to see what his companions had done, with their brisk fusillade. But he could not make out. They were still watching the setter, that was again being encouraged to go on, lest a stray bird or two might still be in hiding. However, the quest was fruitless. The whole of the small covey had risen simultaneously. So Roderick picked up the dead birds and put them on a conspicuous stone, at the same time signalling to the gillie with the pony, who was slowly coming up. Then the shooting-party went forward again.

"How many birds rose then?" Lionel asked of his host.

"Five."

"And you got them all?" he said, judging by what he had seen the head keeper pick up.

"Oh, yes, we got them all. They spread out like a fan. Waveney got one brace and I another. I suppose," he added, with a smile, "you were too intent on your own bird to notice?"

"Yes, I was," he said, honestly; but he was none the less elated, for he knew that a good beginning would give him confidence.

And it did. They were soon at a part of the moor where the fun grew fast and furious; and, keeping as close as he could to certainties, or what looked like certainties, he was doing fairly well. As for the other two, he could only judge of their prowess by the birds the keeper picked up; for he kept strictly to his own business and rarely adventured on a second shot. But it was clear that both Sir Hugh and Captain Waveney were highly pleased with the way things were going. There were plenty of birds; they lay well; the dogs were working beautifully; and the bag was mounting up at a rate that promised to atone for the delay of the morning. In fact, they were now disposed to regard that episode as rather a comical affair.

"I say, Waveney," Sir Hugh remarked, as they paused for a moment to have a sip of cold tea, for the day was hot, "you'd better confess it; you put up the old minister to give us that frightfully long service this morning. It was a joke on Lord Fareborough—now, wasn't it?"

"It may have been; but I had nothing to do with it, anyway," was the answer. "Not I. Too serious a joke. I thought his lordship was going to have a fit of apoplexy when he came into the gun-room."

"My good fellow, don't talk like that!" the other exclaimed. "If you mention apoplexy to him, he'll add that on to the hundred and twenty diseases and dangers that threaten his life every moment. Apoplexy! What has he got already?—gout, asthma, heart disease, his lungs giving way, his liver in a frightful condition, his nervous system gone to bits—and yet, all the same, the old hypocrite is going to try for a stag before he leaves. I suppose he'll want Roderick to carry him as soon as he quits the pony! Well, come along, Mr. Moore; we've done pretty well so far, I think."

But it was not Lionel who needed any incitement to go forward; he was far more eager than any of his companions, now that he had been acquitting himself none so ill. Moreover, he had youth on his side and a sound chest, while nature had not given him a pair of well-formed calves for nothing; so that he faced the steep hillsides or got over the rough ground with comparative ease, rejoicing the while in the unwonted freedom of knickerbockers. It was Sir Hugh, with his bulky habit of body, who got blown now and again; as for Captain Waveney, he was a pretty tough subject and wiry. So they fought bravely on, to atone for the inhuman detention of the morning; and by the time it was necessary to make for the appointed luncheon rendezvous they had the wherewithal to give a very excellent account of themselves.

Now, several times during the morning they had come in view of the Aivron, winding far below them through the wide strath, or narrowing to a thread as it rose towards the high horizon-line in the west; and always, when there was a momentary chance, Lionel's eye had sought these distant sweeps and bends for some glimpse of the lonely angler-maiden, and sought in vain. The long valley seemed empty; and some little feeling of shyness prevented his asking his companions to point out the Junction Pool, whither, as he understood, she had been bound in the morning. And as they now approached the appointed place of meeting, he was quite disturbed by the fancy that she might have strayed away into unknown regions and be absent from this general picnic; and the moment they came in sight of the group of people who were strolling about, or looking on while the servants spread out the table-cloth on the heather and brought forth the various viands, one swift glance told him she was not present. Here was a disappointment! He wanted to tell her how he had got on, under her kind instruction—this was his own explanation of the pang her absence caused him; but presently he had found another; for Lady Rosamund was grouping the people for her sketch; and what would the sketch be without Honnor Cunyngham in it? He made bold to say so.

"Oh, you can't depend on Honnor," Lady Adela said. "She may have risen a fish, or may have got hold of one. But if you want to know whether she is likely to turn up, you might go out to that point, Mr. Moore, and then you'll be able to see whether she is coming anywhere near the Bad Step."

Willingly enough he went down through the scattered birch-trees to a projecting point overlooking the river from a very considerable height; and there, right below him, he discovered what it was they called the Bad Step. The precipice on which he stood going sheer down into the Aivron, the path along the stream left the banks some distance off, came up to where he stood, and then descended again by a deep gorge probably cut by water-power through the slaty rock. And even as he was regarding this twilit chasm it suddenly appeared to him that there were two figures away down there, crossing the burn at the foot; and then one of them, in gray—unmistakably the fisher-maiden herself—began the ascent. How she managed to obtain a footing he could not make out; for the path was no path, but merely a zig-zag track on the surface of the loose shingle—shingle so loose that he could see it yield to her every step, while the debris rolled away down to the bed of the burn. But still she fought her way upward, and at last she stood face to face with him, smiling, but a little breathless.

"That's a frightful place to come up," said he.

"Oh, it's nothing, when you know it," she said, lightly. "Tell me, how did you get on this morning?"

"Thanks to you, I think I did pretty well," said he.

"I'm awfully glad of that," said she; and the soft, clear hazel eyes repeated her words in their own transparent way.

"I remembered all your instructions," he continued (and he was in no hurry that Miss Cunyngham should go on to the luncheon-party; while old Robert stood patiently by). "And I was very fortunate in getting easy shots. Then when I did miss, either Sir Hugh or Captain Waveney was sure to get the bird? I never saw such smart shooting."

"What have you done?"

"Altogether?"

"Yes."

"I don't know. The panniers are being emptied, to make a show for Lady Rosamund's sketch. I fancy there are close on sixty brace of grouse, with some blue hares and a snipe and a wild duck."

"What has Lord Fareborough's party done?"

"I don't know? they have just shown up—so you needn't hurry on unless you are hungry."

"But I am—very hungry," said she, with a laugh. "I have been hard at work all the morning."

"Oh, in that case," he said, eagerly, "by all means come along, and I'll get you something at once. You and I needn't wait for the emptying of the other panniers. Oh, yes, that will do first-rate; I'm a duffer at shooting, you know, Miss Cunyngham, but I'm a splendid forager at a picnic. Let me carry the gaff for you."

"Oh, no, thank you," she said, "I merely use it as a walking-stick coming up the Bad Step."

"And there," he exclaimed, as they went on through the birch-wood, "look at the selfishness of men! You ask all about my shooting; but I never asked what luck you had with your fishing."

"Well, I've had rather bad luck," she said, simply. "I lost a fish in the Geinig Pool, after having him on for about five minutes, and I rose another in the Horse-Shoe Pool and couldn't get him to come again all I could do. But I mean to call upon him in the afternoon."

A sudden inspiration flashed into his brain.

"I should like to come and see you try for him," he said, quickly. "I suppose they wouldn't mind my sending home my gun?"

"Mr. Moore!" she said, with her eyes downcast. "They'd think you were mad to leave a shooting-party on the Twelfth. You can see a salmon caught, or catch one yourself, any time."

He felt a little bit snubbed, he hardly knew why; but of course she knew what was right in all such things; and so he humbly acquiesced. Indeed, he could not contest the point, for now they had come upon the picnic-party, where luncheon was in full swing. Lord Fareborough had declared on his arrival that he would not wait for the completion of his daughter's sketch; his nervous system was not to be tried in any such fashion; luncheon must be proceeded with at once, and Lady Rosamund could make her drawing when the gentlemen were smoking afterwards. Lady Adela wanted to wait for Mr. Moore, but she, too, was overruled by the impatient hypochondriac. So Lionel set to work to form a seat for Miss Honnor, out of some bracken that the gillies had cut and brought along; and also he exclusively looked after her—to Miss Georgie Lestrange's chagrin; for Lord Rockminster was too lazy to attend to any one but himself, and what girl likes being waited on by her brother when other young men are about?

And now the burly and broad-shouldered host of all these people called on them to unanimously forgive the minister for the injury he had unintentionally done them in the morning.

"It wasn't the good man's fault at all; it was Waveney's," Sir Hugh continued, as he got hold of a spoon and delved it into a pigeon-pie. "I assure you it was a practical joke that Captain Waveney played upon the whole of you. He gave the minister a little hint—and the thing was done."

Lord Fareborough glared at the culprit as if he expected to see the heavens fall upon him; but Lady Adela observed, with a touch of dignity,

"I hope I know Captain Waveney well enough not to believe that he would turn any religious service into a practical joke."

"I hope so, too, Lady Adela," the dapper little captain instantly replied, though without any great embarrassment. "That's hardly my line of country. But there's another thing: Sir Hugh may ask you to believe anything, but he won't make you believe that I could trifle with such a sacred subject as the morning of the Twelfth."

"Faith, you're right there, Waveney," Sir Hugh said, with a laugh. "Well, we've done our best to make up for the loss of time. And now, Rose, if you want to have your sketch, fire away! I'm going to light a pipe; but, mind, we sha'n't stop here very long. You'd better put in us men at once; and then you can draw in the ladies and the game and the luncheon at your leisure."

"And if you want me, Rose," Honnor Cunyngham said, "please put me in at once, too; for I'm going away back to the Horseshoe Pool."

"My dear child," Lady Adela protested, "you'll break your neck some day going down that Bad Step. I really think Hugh should have a windlass at the top and let people down by a rope. Now look alive, Rose, and get your sketch begun; I can see the gentlemen are all impatient to be off. And mind you have Mr. Moore rolling up a cigarette: it won't be natural otherwise."

She was right about one thing, anyway; the sportsmen were undoubtedly impatient to be off; and it is to be feared that Lady Rosamund's sketch suffered by the restlessness of her models. Indeed, after a very little while, Lord Fareborough indignantly rose, and declared he never had known a Twelfth of August so shamelessly sacrificed. He, for one, would have no more of it. He called to the under-keeper to bring along the gillies and the dogs; whereupon Lady Rosamund, who had a temper not quite in consonance with the calm and statuesque beauty of her features, closed her sketch-book and threw it aside, saying she would make the drawing some other day when she found the gentlemen a little more considerate.

And soon Lionel and his two companions were at their brisk occupation again; though ever and anon his thoughts would go wandering away to the Horseshoe Pool, and his fancy was picturing the fisher-maiden on the summit of a great gray boulder, while a fifteen-pounder raced and chased in the black deeps below. Sometimes he tried to get a glimpse of the upper stretches of the river; but this was a dangerous trick when all his attention was demanded by the work on hand. In any case his scrutiny of those far regions was unavailing; for the Horseshoe Pool is on the Geinig, a tributary of the Aivron, and not visible from the hill-slopes along which they were now shooting.

The bag mounted up steadily; for the afternoon, despite the threats of the morning, remained fine and clear and still; the birds lay close, and the two outside guns were skilful performers. As for Lionel, he had now acquired a certain confidence; he took no shame that he reserved for himself the easy shots; the nasty ones he could safely leave to his companions. At last, as they came in sight of a lovely little tarn lying under a distant hillock, and could descry two small dots floating on the surface of the water, Sir Hugh said to his head keeper,

"See here, Roderick, are those duck or mergansers?"

The keeper took a long look before he made reply.

"I'm not sure, Sir Hugh, but I am thinking they are mergansers, for I was seeing two or three lately."

"Very well, call in the dogs. I'm going to sit down and have a pipe. I suppose you'll do the same, Mr. Moore—though I must say this for you that you can walk. You have the advantage of youth, and you haven't as much to carry as I have. Well, I propose we have a few minutes' rest? and we will occupy ourselves in watching Waveney stalk those mergansers. There's a job for you, Waveney. They are the most detestable birds alive to have near a forest or a salmon-stream."

"Why, what harm can they do to the salmon?" Lionel asked, as he saw Captain Waveney at once change the cartridges in his gun for No. 4's and set off down the hillside.

"They snap up the parr, of course," said his heavy-shouldered host, as he drew out a wooden pipe and a pouch of black Cavendish, "but that isn't the worst: they disturb the pools most abominably—swimming about under water they frighten the salmon out of their senses. But when you get them about a deer-forest they are a still more intolerable nuisance; you are never safe; just as you are getting up to the stag, creeping along the course of a burn, perhaps, bang! goes one of those brutes like a sky-rocket, and the whole herd are instantly on the alert. Oh, that's a job old Waveney likes well enough; and it will give the dogs a rest as well as ourselves."

By this time the stalker had got out of sight. He was making a considerable detour, so as to get round by the back of the hillock unobserved; and when he came into view again, he was on the other side of the valley. The mergansers, if they were mergansers, were still swimming about unsuspectingly, though sometimes at a considerable distance apart.

"Does Miss Cunyngham shoot as well as fish?" Lionel ventured to ask.

"She has tried it," her brother said, as he called up Roderick and gave him a dram out of his capacious flask. "And I think she might shoot very well, but she doesn't care about it. It is too violent, she says. The sudden bang disturbs the charm of the scenery—something of that kind—I'm not up in these things; but she's an odd kind of girl. Tremendously fond of quietude and solitude; we've found her in the most unexpected places—and there are some lonely places about these hills. I tell her she shouldn't go on these long excursions without taking old Robert with her; supposing she were to sprain her ankle, she might have to remain there all night and half the next day before we could find her. Sooner or later I know she'll startle some solitary shepherd out of his senses: he'll come back to his hut swearing that he has seen a Gray Lady where no mortal woman could be. Hullo, there's Waveney again—he'll soon be on them."

They could see him stealing across the top of the hillock, and then making his way down behind certain rocks that served as a screen between him and the birds. Then he disappeared again.

"Why doesn't he fire?" Lionel asked, presently. "He must be quite close to them."

"Not so close as you imagine," was the answer. "Probably he is waiting until they come nearer together."

The next moment there stepped boldly forth the slight, brown figure; the birds instantly rose from the water and, with swift, straight flight, made down the valley; but they had not got many yards when there were two white puffs of smoke, both birds almost simultaneously came tumbling to the ground, and then followed the double report of a gun.

"Waveney has got his eye in to-day for certain," Sir Hugh said. "But what's the use of his bringing the birds along?—they're no good to anybody."

"I thought perhaps they might be of some use for salmon-flies," Captain Waveney explained, as he came up. "Aren't they, Roderick?"

The keeper regarded the two birds contemptuously, and shook his head.

"Well, Waveney, we will give you five minutes' grace, if you like," Sir Hugh said. "Sit down and have a pipe."

But this slim and wiry warrior had not even taken the gun from his shoulder.

"No, no," said he, "if you are ready, I am. I can get plenty of smoking done in the South."

So they began again; but the afternoon was now on the wane, and the beats were leading them homewards. Only two small incidents that befell the novice need mentioning. The first happened in this wise: the dogs were ranging widely over what appeared to be rather a barren beat, when suddenly one of them came to a dead point a considerable distance on. Of course Captain Waveney and Sir Hugh hurried forward; but Lionel could not, for he had got into trouble with a badly jammed cartridge. Just as he heard the first shot fired, he managed to get the empty case extracted and to replace it with a full one; and then he was about to hasten forward when he saw the covey rise—a large covey it was—while Captain Waveney got a right and left, and Sir Hugh fired his remaining barrel, for he had not had time to reload. At the same instant Lionel found that one of the birds had doubled back and was coming right over his head; up went his gun; he blazed away; and down rolled the grouse some dozen yards behind him.

"Well done!" Sir Hugh called out, "A capital shot!"

"A ghastly fluke, Sir Hugh!" Lionel called out, in return. "I simply fired in the air."

"And a very good way of firing, too!" was the naive rejoinder.

But his next achievement was hardly so creditable. They were skirting the edge of a birch-wood that clothed the side of a steep precipice overlooking the Aivron, where there were some patches of bracken among the heather, when the setter in front of him—a young dog—began to draw rather falteringly on to something.

"Ware rabbit, Hector!" the keeper said, in an undertone.

But meanwhile the older dog, that was backing in front of Captain Waveney, whether it was impatient of this uncertainty on the part of its younger companion, or whether it was jealous, managed, unobserved, to steal forward a foot or two, until suddenly it stopped rigid.

"Good dog, Iris, good dog!" Captain Waveney said (for he had overlooked that little bit of stealthy advance), and he shifted his gun from his right hand to his left, and stooped down and patted the animal's neck—though all the time he was looking well ahead.

Then all at once there was a terrific whir of wings; Waveney quickly put his gun to his shoulder—paused—took it down again; at the same moment Lionel, finding a bird within his proper field, as he considered—though it was going away at a prodigious speed—took steady aim and fired. That distant object dropped—there was not a flutter. Of course the keeper and Sir Hugh were still watching the young dog; but when this doubtful scent came to nothing, Sir Hugh turned to Lionel.

"That was a long shot of yours, Mr. Moore," said he. "And very excusable."

"Excusable?" said Lionel, wondering what he had done this time.

"Of course you knew that was a blackcock?" the other said.

"A blackcock?" he repeated.

"Didn't you hear Roderick call out? Didn't you see Waveney put up his gun and then take it down?"

"Neither the one nor the other; I only saw a bird before me—and fired."

"Oh, well, there's no great harm done; if a man has no worse sin on his conscience than shooting a blackcock on the Twelfth, he should sleep sound o' nights. Waveney is fastidious. I dare say, if the bird had come my way, I should not have resisted the temptation."

Lionel considered that Sir Hugh was an exceedingly considerate and good-natured person; and in fact when they picked up the dead bird, and when he was regarding its handsome plumage, it cannot fairly be said that he was very sorry for his venial mistake. Only he considered he was bound in honor to make confession to Miss Cunyngham.

Alas! he was to see little of Miss Cunyngham that night. As soon as dinner was over—and Sir Hugh and his satellite had left the dining-room to enter up the game-book, write labels for special friends, and generally finish up the business of the day—Lady Adela proposed a game of Dumb Crambo; and in this she was heartily backed up by the Lestranges, for Miss Georgie seemed to think that the mantle of Kitty Clive had descended upon her shoulders, while her brother evidently regarded himself as a facetious person. Speedily it appeared, however, that there was to be a permanent and stationary audience. Lord Fareborough—especially after dinner, when his nervous system was still in dark deliberation as to what it meant to do with him—was too awful a personage to be approached; Honnor Cunyngham good-humoredly said that she was too stupid to join in; and Lord Rockminster declared that if that was her excuse, it applied much more obviously to himself. Accordingly, the remaining members of the house-party had to form the entertainers; and never had Lionel entered into any pastime with so little zest. These people could not act a bit, and yet he had to coach them; and then he and they had to go into the drawing-room and perform their antics before that calm-browed young lady (who nevertheless regarded the proceedings with the most friendly interest) and her companion, the stolid young lord. He could not help acknowledging to himself that Miss Honnor Cunyngham and Lord Rockminster formed a remarkably handsome couple as they sat together there on a couch at right angles with the fireplace; but the distinguished appearance of the audience did not console him for the consciousness that the performers were making themselves absurd. He was impatient, ashamed, of the whole affair. Dark and sullen thoughts went flashing through his brain of saving up every penny he could get hold of and going away into some savage wilderness in Ross or Sutherland, to be seen of actors and amateurs no more. His gun and his rod would be his sole companions; his library would consist of St. John, Colquhoun, "Stonehenge," and Francis (not of Assisi); by moor and stream he would earn his own subsistence; and theatres and fashionable life and the fantastic aspirations and ambitions of les Precieuses Ridicules would be banished from him forever. But fortunately a nine-o'clock dinner had driven this foolish entertainment late, so that it did not last long; the ladies were unanimously willing to retire; the gentlemen thereupon trooped off to the gun-room to have a smoke and a glass of whiskey and soda water; and very soon thereafter the deep-breathing calm of the whole household told that the labors of the Twelfth were over.



CHAPTER IX.

VENATOR IMMEMOR.

And why was it, when, in course of time, it became practicable to arrange a deer-stalking expedition for him, why was it that he voluntarily chose to encounter what Lord Rockminster had called the very extremes of fatigue and human misery? He knew that he was about to undergo tortures of anxiety and privation; and, what was worse, he knew he was going to miss. He had saturated his mind with gillies' stories of capital shots who had completely lost their nerve on first catching sight of a stag. The "buck-ague" was already upon him. Not for him was there waiting away in these wilds some Muckle Hart of Ben More to gain a deathless fame from his rifle-bullet. He was about to half-kill himself with the labors of a long and arduous expedition, and at the end of it he foresaw himself returning home defeated, dejected, in the deepest throes of mortification and chagrin.

And look what he was giving up. Here was a whole houseful of charming women all ready to pet him and make much of him; and in their society he would be at home, dealing with things with which he was familiar. Lady Sybil would be grateful to him if he helped her with the music she was arranging for "Alfred: a Masque;" he could be of abundant service, too, to Lady Rosamund, who was now making individual studies for her large drawing of "Luncheon on the Twelfth;" though perhaps he could not lend much aid to Lady Adela, who was understood to be getting on very well with her new novel. But, at all events, he would be in his own element; he would be among things that he understood; he would be no trembling ignoramus adventuring forth into the unknown. And yet when, early in the morning, the old and sturdy pony was brought round to the door, and when the brown-bearded Roderick had shouldered the rifle and was ready to set forth, Lionel had little thought of surrendering his chance to any one else.

"I call this very shabby treatment," his burly and good-humored host said, as he stood at the open door. "When a man goes stalking, if there's a pretty girl in the house, she ought to make her appearance and give him a little present for good luck. It's an understood thing; it's an old custom; and yet there isn't one of those lazy creatures down yet."

"This is the best I can do for you, old fellow," Percy Lestrange said, at the same moment. "I can't give you the flask, for my sister Georgie gave it to me; but I will lend it to you for the day; and it's filled with an excellent mixture of curacoa and brandy. You'll want some comfort? and I don't expect they'll let you smoke. What do you think of my crest?"

He handed the silver flask to Lionel, who found engraved on the side of it a merry and ingenious device, consisting of two briar-root pipes, crossed, and surrounded by a heraldic garter bearing the legend "Dulce est de-sip-ere in loco?" Was this Miss Georgia's little joke? Anyhow, he pocketed the flask with much gratitude; he guessed he might have need of it, if all tales were true.

"I hope you'll get a presentable head," Sir Hugh said, "The stags themselves are not in very good condition yet; but the horns are all right—the velvet's off."

"It doesn't much matter," Lionel made answer, contentedly. "I know beforehand I am going to miss. Well, good-bye, for the present! Go ahead, Maggie!"

But at the same moment there was a glimmer of a gray dress in the twilight of the hall; and the next moment Honnor Cunyngham appeared on the doorstep, the morning light shining on her smiling face.

"Mr. Moore," she said, coming forward without any kind of embarrassment, "there's an old custom—didn't my brother tell you?—you must take a little gift from some one in the house, just as you are going away, for good luck. You haven't yet? Here it is, then."

"It is exceedingly kind of you," said he; "and I wish I could make the omen come true; but I have no such hope. I know I am going to miss."

"You are going to kill a stag!" said she, confidently. "That is what you are going to do. Well, good-bye, and good-luck!"

So the little party of three—Lionel, Roderick, and the attendant gillie—straightway left the lodge and began to make for the head of the strath. And it was not altogether about deer that Lionel was now thinking. The tiny, thin packet he held in his hand seemed to burn there. What was it Honnor Cunyngham had brought down-stairs for him? However trivial it might be, surely it was something he could keep. She had given it to him for good luck; but her wishes were not confined to this one day? Then, when he had got some distance from the house, so that his curiosity could not be observed, he threw the reins on Maggie's neck, and proceeded to open this small packet covered with white paper. What did he find there?—why-only a sixpence—a bright new sixpence—not to be compared in value with the dozens on dozens of presents which were lavished upon him by his fair admirers in London—courteous little attentions which, it must be confessed, he had grown to regard with a somewhat callous indifference. Only a small, bright coin this was; and yet he carefully wrapped up the precious talisman again in its bit of tissue paper; and as carefully he put it away in a waistcoat pocket, where it would be safe, even among the rough-and-tumble experiences that lay before him. The day seemed all the happier, all the more hopeful, that he knew this little token of friendly sympathy was in his possession. Ought not a lucky sixpence to have a hole bored in it? He could wear it in secret, even if she might not care to see it hanging at his watch-chain? and who could tell what subtle influence it might not bring to bear on his fortunes, wholly apart from the stalking of stags? He grew quite cheerful; he forgot his nervousness; he was talking gayly to the somewhat taciturn Roderick, who, nevertheless, no doubt much preferred to find his pupil in this confident mood.

Their course at first lay along the nearer bank of the Aivron; but, when they had got away up the strath towards the neighborhood of the Bad Step—which was, of course, impassable for the pony—Lionel had to separate from his companions and ford the river, following up the other side. Fortunately there was not much water in the stream; old Maggie knew her way well enough; and with nothing more than an occasional stumble among the slippery boulders and loose stones they reached the opposite bank in safety. About a mile farther up the return crossing had to be made; but this second ford was shallow and easy; and thenceforward the united party went on together. At last they struck the Geinig; and here a rude track took them away from the valley of the Aivron altogether, into a solitary land of moor and rock.

It was a still and rather louring morning; but yet he did not perceive any gloom in it at all; nay, there was rather a tender and wistful beauty up in this lonely wilderness he was entering. The heavy masses of cloud hung low and brooding over the purple hills; the heavens seemed to be in close communion with the murmuring streams in these otherwise voiceless solitudes; the long undulations were not darkly stained, they only lay under a soft, transparent shadow. Even among the grays and purple-grays of the sky there was here and there a mild sheen of silver; and now and again a pale radiance would begin to tell upon an uprising slope, until something almost like sunlight shone there, glorifying the lichened rocks and the crimson heather. This was one of the days that Honnor Cunyngham loved; and he, too, had got to appreciate their sombre beauty, the brooding calm, the gracious silence, when he went with her on her fishing expeditions into the wilds. And here was her favorite Geinig—sometimes with tawny masses boiling down between the boulders, sometimes sweeping in a black-brown current round a sudden curve, and sometimes racing over silver-gray shallows; but always with this continuous murmur that seemed to offer a kind of companionship where there was no other sound or sign of life. And would she be up here later on? he asked himself, with a curious kind of interest. Would she have a thought for the small party that had passed in the early morning and disappeared into the remote and secret fastnesses among those lonely hills? Might she linger on in the evening, in the hope of finding them coming home again—perchance with joyful news? For, after all, this lucky sixpence had buoyed up his spirits; he was not so entirely certain he would miss, if anything like a fair chance presented itself; and he knew that if that chance did offer, he would bring all that was in him to bear on the controlling of his nerves—he would not breathe—his life would be concentrated on the small cleft of the rifle—if his heart cracked in twain the instant after the trigger was pulled.

But these vague and anxious speculations were soon to be discarded for the immediate interests of the moment. They were getting near to the ground—after a sufficiently rough journey of close on eight miles; and now, as they came to the bed of a little burn, Lionel was bidden to descend from his venerable steed; the saddle was taken off; and old Maggie was hobbled, and left to occupy herself with the fresh, sweet grass growing near to the stream.

"Now look here, Roderick," Lionel said, "I'm entirely in your hands, and mind you don't spare me. Since I'm in for it, I mean to see it through."

"When it is after a stag we are, there is no sparing of any one," said Roderick, significantly, as he took out his telescope. "And you will think of this, sir, that if we are crahling along, and come on the deer without expecting it, and if they see you, then you will lie still like a stone. Many's the time they will chist stand and look at you, if you do not move; and then slowly, slowly you will put your head down in the heather again, and wait till I tell you what to do. But if you go out of sight quick—ay, so will they."

At first, as it appeared to Lionel, they went forward with a dangerous fearlessness, the keeper merely using his natural eye-sight to search the slopes and corries; but presently he began to go more warily; again and again he paused, to watch the motion of the white rags of cloud clinging to the hillsides; and occasionally, as they got up into the higher country, he would lie down with his back on a convenient mound, cross one knee over the other, and, with this rest for his telescope, proceed to scrutinize, inch by inch, the vast prospect before him. There was no more talking now. There was a kind of stealthiness in their progress, even when they walked erect; but it soon appeared to Lionel that Roderick, who went first, seemed to be keeping a series of natural eminences between them and a certain distant tract of this silent and lonely land. It was only a guess; but it accounted for all kinds of circuitous little turns; anyhow, there was nothing for him but to follow blindly whither he was led. Of course he kept his eyes open; but there was no sign of life anywhere in this barren wilderness; there was nothing but the empty undulations of heath and thick grass, with sometimes a little tarn coming in sight, and always the farther hills forming a sort of solitary amphitheatre along the horizon.

Suddenly Roderick stopped short, and quietly put out his hand to arrest the progress of his companions. Involuntarily they stooped; and he not only did likewise, but presently he was on his back on the heather, with the telescope balanced as before. After a long and earnest scrutiny, he offered the glass to Lionel.

"They're there," he said, "but in an ahfu' bad place for us."

Eagerly Lionel got hold of the telescope and tried to balance it as the keeper had done; but either his hand was trembling, or the wind had a purchase on the long tube, or he was unaccustomed to its use; at all events he could make out nothing but nebulous and uncertain patches of color.

"Tell me where they are," he said, quickly, as he put aside the glass. "I have good eyes."

"Do you see the gray scar on the hillside yonder?—then right below that the rocks—and then the open place—can you see them now? Ay, and there's not a single hind with them—"

"They're all stags?" exclaimed Lionel, breathlessly.

"Every one," said Roderick. "And when there's no hinds with them, it is easier to get at them, for they're not near so wary as the hinds; but that is a bad place where they are feeding the now—a terrible bad place. I'm thinking it is no use to try to get near them there; but they will keep feeding on and on until they get over the ridge; and what we will do now is we will chist go aweh down wind, and get round to them from anither airt."

It was little that Lionel knew what was involved in this apparently simple scheme. At first everything was easy enough; for, when they had fallen back out of sight of the deer, they merely set forth upon a long walk down wind, going erect, without any trouble. It is true that Lionel in time began to think that the keeper, instead of having the deer in mind, was bent on a pilgrimage into Cromarty or Sutherland, or perhaps towards the shores of the Atlantic; but this interminable tramp was a mere trifle compared with their labors when they began to go up wind again. For now there was nothing but stooping and crawling and slouching behind hillocks, up peat-hags, and through marshy swamps; while the heat produced by all this painful toil was liable to a sudden chill whenever a halt was called to enable Roderick to writhe his prostrate figure up to the top of some slight eminence, where, raising his head inch by inch, he once more informed himself of the whereabouts of the deer. There seemed to be no end to this snake-like squirming along the ground and creeping behind rocks and hillocks; in fact, they were now in a quite different tract of country from that in which they had first caught sight of the stags—a much more wild and sombre landscape was this, with precipitous black crags overhanging a sullen and solitary loch that had not a bush or a tree along its lifeless shores. As for Lionel, he fought along without repining. His arms were soaking wet up to the elbows; his legs were in a like condition from the knee downward. Then he was damp with perspiration; while ever and anon, when he had to lie prone in the moist grass, or crouch like a frog behind a rock, the cold wind from the hills sent a shiver down his spine or seemed to strike like an icy dagger through his chest. But he took it all as part of the day's work. There was in his possession a little silver token that afforded him much content. He would acquit himself like a man—if he could; at any rate, he would not grumble.

After what seemed ages of this inconceivable torture, Lionel was immensely relieved to find the keeper, after a careful survey from the top of a mound to which he had crawled, motion with his hand to him to come up to his side. This he did with the greatest circumspection, scarcely raising his head above the grass and heather; and then, when he had joined Roderick, he began to peer through the waving stalks and twigs just before his eyes. Suddenly his gaze was arrested by certain brown tips—tips that were moving; were these the stags' horns, he asked himself, in a kind of bewilderment of fear? There could be no doubt of it. The beasts were now lying down—he could not see their bodies—but clearly enough he could make out their branching antlers, as they lazily moved their heads, or perhaps turned to flick a fly away.

"They're too far off, aren't they?" Lionel whispered—and, despite all his sworn resolves to keep calm, he felt his heart going as if it would choke him.

"They're lying down now," Roderick said, with professional coolness, "and they're right out in the open; it is no use at all trying to get near them until they get up in the afternoon and begin to feed again, and then maybe they will feed over the shoulder yonder. No use at all," said he; but just at this moment his quick eye caught sight of something else that had just appeared on the edge of one of the lower slopes, and the expression of his face instantly changed—into something like alarm. "Bless me, look at that now!"

Lionel slowly and cautiously turned his head; and then, quite clearly, he could see a small company of seven or eight stags that had come along from quite a different direction. They paused at the crest of the slope, looking all about them.

"Was ever anything so mischievous?" Roderick exclaimed, in smothered vexation. "If they come over this way they will get our wind; and then it is good-bye to all of them. And we cannot get away neither—well, well, was there ever the like now? There is only the one chance—mebbe they will go along to the others, and keep with them till they begin feeding in the afternoon. Indeed, now, it is a terrible peety if we are to miss such a chance—and not a hind anywhere to be on the watch!"

Happily, however, Roderick's immediate fears were soon dispelled. The new-comers slowly descended the slope; then they bore up the valley again; and after walking about awhile, they followed the example of the rest of the herd and lay down on the heather.

"Ay, ay, that is better now," Roderick said, with much satisfaction. "That is ferry well now. And since there is nothing to be done till the whole of them get up to feed in the afternoon, we will chist creep aweh into a peat-hag and wait there, and you can have your lunch, sir."

So there was another crawling performance down from this exposed height; and eventually the small party managed to hide themselves in a black and moist peat-hag, where their extremely frugal repast was produced.

"But look here, Roderick," Lionel said, "it's only twelve o'clock now; do you mean to say we have to stop in this wet hole till two or three in the afternoon?"

"Ay, chist that," the keeper said, coolly. "They will begin to feed about three; and until they go over the ridge, it is no use at all trying to get near them."

"And what are we to do all the time?"

"Chist wait," Roderick said, with much simplicity; and then he and the gillie withdrew a little way down the peat-hag, so that they might have their luncheon and a cautious whispering in Gaelic by themselves.

It was tantalizing in the last degree. The breathless consciousness that the deer were close by made him all the more impatient for the half-dreaded opportunity of having a shot at one of them. He wished it was well over. If he were going to miss, he wanted to have his agony of mortification encountered and done with, instead of enduring this maddening delay. The peat-hag became a prison; and a very uncomfortable prison, too. His sandwiches were soon disposed of; thereafter—what? He dared not smoke; he had no book with him; the keeper and the gillie, having withdrawn themselves, were exchanging confidences in their native tongue. His clothes were wet and cold and clammy; Percy Lestrange's flask appeared to afford him no comfort whatever. And of course the longer he brooded over the chances of hit or miss, the more appalling became the responsibility. How much depended on that fifteenth part of a second! He was half inclined to say, "Here, Roderick, I can bear this anxiety no longer. Let us get as near the deer as we can; sight the rifle for a long distance, you whistle the stags on to their legs—and I'll blaze into the thick of them. Anything to get the shot over and done with!"

Indeed, this intolerable waiting was about as bad a thing as could have happened to his nerves; but it did not last quite as long as the keeper had anticipated; for about two o'clock Roderick ascertained that the stags were up again and feeding. This was good news—anything was good news, in fact, that broke in upon this sickening suspense; had Lionel been informed that the deer had taken alarm and disappeared at full gallop, he would have said "Amen!" and set out for home with a light heart. But, by and by, when it was discovered that the stags had gone over the ridge—one of them remained on the crest for a long time, staring right across the valley, so that the stalkers dared not move hand or foot—when this last sentinel had also withdrawn, the slouching and skulking devices of the morning had to be resumed. Not a word was spoken; but Lionel knew that the fateful moment was approaching. Then, when they began to ascend the ridge over which the stags had disappeared, their progress culminated in a laborious crawl, Roderick going first, with the rifle in one hand, Lionel dragging himself after, the gillie coming on as best he might. It was slow work now. The keeper went forward inch by inch, as if at any moment he expected to find a stag staring down upon him. And at last he lay quite still; then, with the slightest movement of his disengaged hand, he beckoned Lionel to come up beside him.

Now was the time for all his desperate and summoned calmness. He shut his lips firm, breathing only by his nose; he gradually pushed his way through the tall, withered grass; and at last, when he was almost side by side with Roderick, he peered forward. They were startlingly near, those brown and dun beasts with the branching antlers!—he almost shrank back—and yet he gazed and gazed with a strange fascination. The stags, which were not more than fifty or sixty yards off, were quite unconscious of any danger; they were quietly feeding; sometimes one of them would cease and raise his head and look lazily around. Just at this moment, too, a pale sunlight began to shine over the plateau on which they stood; and a very pretty picture it lit up—the silver-gray rocks, the wide heath, and those slim and elegant creatures grouped here and there as chance directed. Every single feature of the scene (as he discovered long thereafter) was burned into Lionel's brain; yet he was not aware of it at the time; his whole attention, as he imagined, was directed towards keeping himself cool and restrained and ready to obey Roderick's mute directions. The rifle was stealthily given to him, and as stealthily pushed through the grass. With his fore-finger the keeper indicated the stag at which Lionel was to fire; it was rather lighter in color than the others, and was standing a little way apart. Lionel took time to consider, as he thought; in reality it was to still the quick pulsation of his heart; and as he did so the stag, unfortunately for him, moved, so that, instead of offering him an easy broadside shot, it almost faced him, with its head down. Still, at any moment it might afford a fairer mark; and so, with the utmost caution, and with his lips still shut tight, he slowly raised himself somewhat, and got the rifle into his hands. Yes, the stag had again moved; its shoulder was exposed; his eyes inquired of Roderick if now was the time; and the keeper nodded assent.

The awful crisis had arrived; and he seemed to blind himself and deaden himself to all things in this mortal world except the little notch in the rifle, the shining sight, and that fawn-colored object over there. He took a long breath; he steadied and steadied the slightly trembling barrel until it appeared perfectly motionless; and then—he fired!

Alas! at the very moment that he pulled the trigger—when it was too late for him to change his purpose—the stag threw up its head to flick at its side with its horns, and thus quite altered its position; he knew he ought not to fire—but it was too late—too late—and in the very act of pulling the trigger he felt that he had missed.

Roderick sprang to his feet; for the deer, notwithstanding that they could not have discerned where the danger lay, with one consent bounded forward and made for a rocky defile on the farther side of the plateau.

"Come on, sir! Come on, sir!" the keeper called to Lionel. "You've hit him. Come along, sir!"

"I haven't hit him—I missed—missed clean!" was the hopeless answer.

"I tell ye ye've hit him!" the keeper exclaimed. "Run, sir, run!—if he's only wounded he may need the other barrel. God bless me, did ye not hear the thud when the ball struck?"

Thus admonished Lionel unwittingly, but nevertheless as quickly as he could, followed the keeper; and he could show a nimble pair of heels when he chose, even when he was hampered with this heavy rifle. Not that he had any heart in the chase. The stag had swerved aside just as he fired; he knew he must have missed. At the same time any one who goes out with a professional stalker must be content to become as clay in the hands of the potter; so Lionel did as he was bid; and though he could not overtake Roderick, he was not far behind him when they both reached the pass down which the deer had fled.

And there the splendid animals were still in view—bounding up a stony hillside some distance off, in straggling twos and threes, and going at a prodigious speed. But where was the light-colored stag? Certainly not among those brown beasts whose scrambling up that steep face was sending a shower of stones and debris down into the silent glen below.

"I'm thinking he's no far aweh," Roderick said, eagerly scanning all the ground in front of them. "We'll chist go forrit, sir; and you'll be ready to shoot, for, if he's only wounded, he may be up and off again when he sees us."

"But do you really think I hit him?" Lionel said, anxiously enough.

"I sah him struck," the keeper said, emphatically. "But he never dropped—no, not once on his knees even. He was off with the best of them; and that's what meks me think he was well hit, and that he's no far aweh."

So they went forward on the track of the herd, slowly, and searching every dip and hollow. For Lionel it was a period of agonizing uncertainty. One moment he would buoy himself up with the assurance that the keeper must know; the rest he convinced himself that he had missed the stag clean. Now he would be wondering whether this wide, undulating plain really contained the slain monarch of the mists; again he pictured to himself that light-colored, fleet-footed creature far away in advance of all his companions, making for some distant sanctuary among the mountains.

"Here he is, sir!" Roderick cried, with a quick little chuckle; and the words sent a thrill through Lionel such as he had never experienced in his life before. "No—he's quite dead," the keeper continued, seeing that the younger man was making ready to raise his rifle again. "I was thinking he was well hit—and no far aweh."

At the same moment Lionel had eagerly run forward. With what joy and pride—with what a curious sense of elation—with what a disposition of good-will towards all the world—he now beheld this splendid beast lying in the deep peat-hag that had hitherto hidden it from view. The stag's last effort had been to clear this gully; but it had only managed to strike the opposite bank with its forefeet when the death-wound did its work, and then the hapless animal had rolled back with its final groan into the position in which they now found it. In a second, Roderick was down in the peat-hag beside it, holding up its head by one of the horns, and examining the bulletmark.

"Well, sir," said he, with a humorous smile that did not often lighten up his visage, "if this is what you will be calling the missing of a stag, it is a ferry good way to miss it; for I never sah a better shot in my life."

"It's a fluke, then, Roderick; I declare to you I was certain I had missed," said he—though he hardly knew what he was saying; a kind of bewilderment of joy possessed him—he could not keep his eyes off the dead stag—and now, if he had only chanced to notice it, his hand was certainly trembling. Probably Roderick did not know what a fluke was; in any case his response was:

"Well, sir, I'm chist going to drink your good health; ay, and more good luck to you, sir; and it's ferry glad I am that you hef got your first stag!" and therewith he pulled out his small zinc flask.

"Oh, but you mustn't draw on your own supplies!" Lionel exclaimed, in the fulness of his pride and gratitude. "See, here is a flask filled with famous stuff. You take it—you and Alec; I don't want any more to-day."

"Do not be so sure of that," the keeper said, shrewdly, and he modestly declined to take Percy Lestrange's decorated flask. "It's a long walk from home we are; far longer than you think; and mebbe there will be some showers before we get back home."

"I don't care if there's thunder and lightning all the way!" Lionel cried, gayly. "But I'll tell you what, Roderick, I wish you'd lend me your pipe. Have you plenty of tobacco? A cigarette is too feeble a thing to smoke by the side of a dead stag. And—and on my way south I mean to stop at Inverness, and I'll send you as much tobacco as will last you right through the winter; for you see I'm very proud of my first stag—and, of course, it was all owing to your skill in stalking."

Roderick handed the young man his pipe and pouch.

"Indeed, you could not do better, sir, than sit down and hef a smoke, while me and Alec are gralloching the beast. Then we'll drag him to a safe place, and cover him up with heather, and send for him the morn's morning."

"Couldn't you put him on the pony and take him down with us? I can walk," Lionel suggested; for had he not some dim vision in his mind of a triumphal procession down the strath, towards the dusk of the evening, with perhaps a group of fair spectators awaiting him at the door of the lodge?

"Well, sir," the keeper made answer, as he drew out his gralloching knife, "you see, there's few things more difficult than to strap a deer on the back of a powny when there's no proper deer-saddle. No, sir, we'll just leave him in a safe place for the night and send for him in the morning."

"And do you call that a good head to get stuffed Roderick?" the young man asked, still gazing on his splendid prize.

"Aw, well, I hef seen better heads, and I hef seen worse heads," the keeper said, evasively. "But the velvet is off the horns whatever."

This was tremendously strong tobacco that Roderick had handed him, and yet, as it seemed to him, he had never smelt a sweeter fragrance perfuming the soft mountain air. Nor did these appear grim and awful solitudes any longer; they were friendly solitudes, rather; as he sat and peacefully and joyously smoked, he studied every feature of them—each rock and swamp and barren slope, every hill and corrie and misty mountain-top; and he knew that while life remained to him he would never forget this memorable scene—with the slain stag in the foreground. No, nor how could he ever forget that wan glare of sunlight that had come along the plateau where the deer were quietly feeding?—he seemed to see again each individual blade of grass close to his face, as well as the noble quarry that had held him breathless. And then he took out the bright little coin; surely Honnor Cunyngham could not object to his wearing it, seeing that it had proved itself such a potent charm? He rejoiced that he had not been frightened off his expedition by tales of its monotonous sufferings and dire fatigues. This was something better than arranging an out-of-door performance for a parcel of amateurs! Stiff and sore he was, his clothes were mostly soaked and caked with mire, and he did not know what he had not done to his shins and knees and elbows; but he did not mind all that; Honnor Cunyngham was right—as he rode down Strathaivron that evening towards the lodge, it would not be of fatigues and privations he would be thinking! it would be of the lordly stag left away up there in the hills, to be sent for and brought down in triumph the next day.

By the time they had got the stag conveyed to a place of concealment, and carefully covered over with heather, the afternoon was well advanced; then they set out for the little corrie in which the pony had been left. But Lionel was now to discover that they had come much farther into these wilds than he had imagined; indeed, when they at length came upon the stolid and unconcerned Maggie, he did not in the least regret that it was a riding-saddle, not a deer-saddle, they had brought with them in the morning. He had offered to walk these remaining eight miles in order to have the proud satisfaction of taking the stag home with them; now he was just as well content that it was he, and not the slain deer, that Maggie was to carry down to Strathaivron. So he lit another cigarette, got into the saddle, and with a light heart set forth upon the long and tedious jog-jog down towards the region of comparative civilization.

Yet it was hardly so tedious, after all. He was mentally going over again and again every point and incident of the day's thrilling experiences; and now it seemed as if it were a long time since he had been squirming through the heather, with all his limbs aching, and his heart ready to burst. He recalled that beautiful picture of the stags feeding on the lonely plateau; he wondered now that he was able to steady the rifle-barrel until it ceased to be tremulous; he asked himself whether he had not in reality pulled the trigger just before the stag swerved its head aside. And what would have been his feelings now, supposing he had missed? Riding home in silence and dejection—trying to account for the incomprehensible blunder—fearing to think of what he would have to say to the people at the lodge. And he was not at all sorry to reflect that, as soon as the little party got back home, Miss Honnor Cunyngham should see for herself that he, a mere singer out of comedy-opera, was not afraid to face the hardships that had proved too much for Lord Rockminster—yes, and that he had faced them to some purpose.

Very friendly sounded the voice of the Geinig, when it first struck upon his ear; they were getting into a recognizable neighborhood now; here were familiar features—not a waste of the awful and unknown. But it was too much to expect that Miss Cunyngham should still be lingering by any of those pools; the evening was closing in; she must have set out for home long ago, fishing her way down as she went. They passed a shepherd's solitary cottage; the old man came out to hear the news—which was told him in Gaelic. They reached the banks of the Aivron, and trudged along under the tall cliffs and through the scattered birch and hazel. Then came the fording of the river—the tramp along the other side—the return ford—and the small home-going party was reunited again. They skirted the glassy sweeps of the Long Pool, the darker swirls of the Small Pool, and the saffron-tinted masses of foam hurling down between the borders of the Rock Pool; and then at last they came in view of the spacious valley, and far away in the midst of it Strathaivron Lodge.

Had they been coming back with bad news this might have been rather a melancholy sight, perhaps—the long, wide strath with the wan shades of twilight stealing over the meadows and the woods and the winding river; but now (to Lionel at least) it was nothing but beautiful. If the glen itself looked ghostly and lifeless and colorless, there were warmer hues overhead; for a pale salmon-flush still suffused the sky; and where that half-crimson glow, just over the dark, heather-stained hill, faded into an exquisite transparent lilac, there hung a full moon—a moon of the lightest and clearest gold, with its mysterious continents appearing as faint gray films. The prevailing peace seemed to grow more profound with the coming of the night. But this was not a night to be feared—this was a night to be welcomed—a night with that fair golden moon hanging high in the heavens, the mistress and guardian of the silent vale.

When Lionel rode up to the door of the lodge, he found all the gentlemen of the house congregated there and dressed for dinner. Sir Hugh held up his hand.

"No, not one word!" he cried. "Not necessary. I can always tell. It is written in every line of your face."

"It isn't a hind, is it?" inquired Lord Rockminster, doubtfully.

"A hind of ten points!" Lionel said, with a laugh, as he pushed his way through. "Well, I must see if I can have a hot bath to soften my bones."

"My good fellow, it's waiting for you," his host said. "I told Jeffreys the moment I saw you coming down the strath. We'll put back dinner a bit; but be as quick as you can."

At the same moment there appeared a white-draped figure on the landing above, leaning over the balustrade.

"What have you done, Mr. Moore?" called down the well-known voice of Honnor Cunyngham.

"I've got a stag," he said, looking up with a good deal of satisfaction—or gratitude, perhaps?—in his eyes.

"How many points?"

"Ten."

"Well done! Didn't I tell you you would get a stag?"

"It's all owing to the lucky sixpence you gave me," he said; and she laughed, as she turned away to go to her room.

After a welcome bath he dressed as quickly as he could for dinner—dressed so quickly, indeed, that he thought he was entitled to glance at the outside of the pile of letters awaiting him there on the mantelpiece. He had a large correspondence, from all kinds of people; and when he was in a hurry this brief scrutiny of the address was all he allowed himself; he usually could tell if there was anything of unusual importance. On the present occasion the only handwriting that arrested him for a second was Nina's; and some sort of half-understood compunction made him open her letter. Well, it was not a letter; it was merely a little printed form, such as is put about the stalls and boxes of a theatre when an announcement has to be made. This announcement read as follows:

"NOTICE: In consequence of the sudden indisposition of MISS BURGOYNE, the part of 'Grace Mainwaring' will be sustained this evening by MISS ANTONIA ROSS"

—while above these printed words Nina had written, in a rather trembling hand: "Ah, Leo, if you were only here to-night!" Apparently she had scribbled this brief message before the performance; perhaps haste or nervousness might account for the uncertain writing. So Nina was to have her great opportunity after all, he said to himself, as he went joyfully down-stairs to join the brilliant assemblage in the drawing-room. Poor Nina!—he had of late almost forgotten her existence.



CHAPTER X.

AIVRON AND GEINIG.

Honnor Cunyngham was quite as proud as Lionel himself that he had killed a stag; for in a measure he was her pupil; at all events it was at her instigation that he was devoting himself to these athletic sports and pastimes, and so far withdrawing himself from the trivialities and affectations of the serious little band of amateurs. Not that Miss Cunyngham ever exhibited any disdain for those pursuits of her gifted sisters-in-law; no; she listened to Lady Sybil's music, and regarded Lady Rosamund's canvases, and even read the last MS. chapter of Lady Adela's new novel (for that great work was now in progress) with a grave good-humor and even with a kind of benevolence; and it was only when one or the other of them, with unconscious simplicity, named herself in conjunction with some master of the art she was professing—wondering how he could do such and such a thing in such and such a fashion when she found another method infinitely preferable—it was only at such moments that occasionally Honnor Cunyngham's clear hazel eyes would meet Lionel's, and the question they obviously asked was "Is not that extraordinary?" They did not ask "Is not that absurd?" or "How can any one be so innocently and inordinately vain?" they only expressed a friendly surprise, with perhaps the smallest trace of demure amusement.

On the other hand, if Miss Cunyngham rather intimated to this young guest and stranger that, being at a shooting-lodge in the Highlands, he ought to devote himself to the healthful and vigorous recreations of the place, instead of dawdling away his time in drawing-room frivolities, it was not that she herself should take possession of him as her comrade on her salmon-fishing excursions. He soon discovered that he was not to have any great encouragement in this direction. She was always very kind to him, no doubt; and she had certainly proposed that, if he cared to go with her, he could take the wading portions of the pools; but beyond that she extended to him very little companionship, except what he made bold to claim. And the fact is, he was rather piqued by the curious isolation in which this young lady appeared to hold herself. She seemed so entirely content with herself, so wholly indifferent to the little attentions and flatteries of ordinary life, always good-natured when in the society of any one, she was just as satisfied to be left alone. Now, Lionel Moore had not been used to this kind of treatment. Women had been only too ready to smile when he approached; perhaps, indeed, familiar success had rendered him callous; at all events, he had managed to get along so far without encountering any violent experience of heart-aching desire and disappointment and despair. But this young lady, with the clear, fine, intellectual face, the proud lips, the calm, observant eyes, puzzled him—almost vexed him. Nina, for example, was a far more sympathetic companion; either she was enthusiastically happy, talkative, vivacious, gay as a lark, or she was wilfully sullen and offended, to be coaxed round again and petted, like a spoiled child, until the natural sunshine of her humor came through those wayward clouds. But Miss Cunyngham, while always friendly and pleasant, remained (as he thought) strangely remote, imperturbable, calm. She did not seem to care about his society at all. Perhaps she would rather have him go up the hill?—though the birds were getting very wild now for a novice. In any case, she could not refuse to let him accompany her on the morning after his deer-stalking expedition; for all the story had to be told her.

"I suppose you are very stiff," she said, cheerfully, as they left the lodge—he walking heavily in waders and brogues—old Robert coming up behind with rod and gaff. "But I should imagine you do not ask for much sympathy. Shall I tell you what you are thinking of at this moment? You have a vague fear that the foxes may have got at that precious animal during the night; and you are anxious to see it safely down here at the lodge; and you want to have the head sent at once to Mr. Macleay's in Inverness, so that it mayn't get mixed up with the lot of others which will be coming in when the driving in the big forests begins. Isn't that about it?"

"You are a witch," said he, "or else you have been deer-stalking yourself. But, you know, Miss Honnor, it's all very well to go on an expedition like that of yesterday once in a way—as a piece of bravado, almost; and no doubt you are very proud when you see the dead stag lying on the heather before you; but I am not sure I should ever care for it as a continuous occupation, even if I were likely to have the chance. The excitement is too furious, too violent. But look at a day by the side of a salmon river!" continued this adroit young man. "There is absolute rest and peace—except when you are engaged in fighting a salmon; and, for my own part, that is not necessary to my enjoyment at all. No; I would rather see you fish; then I know that everything is going right—that every pool is being properly cast over—that Robert is satisfied. And in the meantime I can sit and drink in all the beauty of the scenery—the quietude—the loneliness; that is a real change for me, after the busy life of London. I have got to be great friends with this river; I seem to have known it all my life; when we were coming home last evening, after being away in those awful solitudes, the sound of the Geinig was the most welcome thing I ever heard, I think."

"It is to the Geinig we are going now," said his companion, who appeared quite to ignore the insidious appeal conveyed in these touching sentiments. "I promised to leave all the Aivron pools to Mr. Lestrange. But we may take the Junction Pool, for he won't have time to come beyond the Bad Step; and, by the way, Mr. Moore, if you feel stiff after yesterday, going up and down the Bad Step won't do you any harm."

Well, the ascent of this Bad Step (whether so named from the French or the Gaelic nobody seemed to know) was not so difficult, after all, for it was gradual; and a brief breathing-space on the summit showed them the far-stretching landscape terminating in the wild mountains of Assynt; but the sheer descent into the gloomy chasm on the other side was rather an awkward thing for any one encased in waders. However, Lionel managed somehow or another to slide and scramble down this zig-zag track on the face of the loose debris; they reached the bottom in safety and crossed the burn; they followed a more secure pathway cut along the precipitous slope overlooking the Aivron; then they got down once more to the river-side, and found themselves walking over velvet-soft turf, in a wood of thinly scattered birch and hazel.

But when they emerged from this wood, passed along by some meadows, and reached the Junction Pool (so called from the Geinig and Aivron meeting here), they found that the sun was much too bright; so they contentedly seated themselves on the bank to wait for a cloud, while old Robert proceeded to consult his fly-book. Neither of them seemed in a very talkative mood; indeed, when you are in front of a Highland river, with its swift-glancing lights, its changing glooms and gleams, its continual murmur and prattle, what need is there of any talk? Talk only distracts the attention. And this part of the stream was especially beautiful. They could hardly quarrel with the sunlight when, underneath the clear water, it sent interlacing lines of gold chasing one another across the brown sand and shingle of the shallows; and if the cloudless sky overhead compelled this unwilling idleness, it also touched each of those dancing ripples with a gleam of most brilliant blue. Farther out those scattered blue gleams became concentrated until they formed glassy sweeps of intensest azure where the deep pools were; and these again gave way to the broken water under the opposite bank, where the swift-running current reflected the golden-green of the overhanging bushes and weeds. Where was the call for any speech between these two? When, at length, Robert admonished the young man to get ready, because a cloud was coming over, and this part of the Aivron had to be waded, Lionel got up with no great good-will; that silent companionship, in the gracious stillness and soothing murmur of the stream, seemed to him to be more profitable to the soul than the lashing of a wide pool with a seventeen-foot rod.

But he buckled to his task like a man; and as he could wade a good distance in, there was no need for him to attempt a long line. Surreptitiously, on many occasions, he had been getting lessons from old Robert; and now, if his casting was not professional in its length, it was at least clean. Moreover, by this time he had learned that the expectant moment in salmon-fishing is not when the fly lights away over at the other side and begins to sweep round in a semicircle, but when it drags in the current before it is withdrawn; and he was in no haste in recovering.

"Why, Mr. Moore, you are casting beautifully," Miss Honnor Cunyngham called to him; and the words were sweet music to his ears, for it may be frankly admitted that this somewhat sensitive novice was playing to the gallery. His diligent and careful thrashing, however, was of no avail. He could not stir anything; and as in time the deepening water drove him ashore, he willingly surrendered his rod to his fair companion, who could now fish from the bank.

Then he sat down to watch—and to dream. He could see that she was getting out more and more line, and throwing beautifully; but he had persuaded himself (or thought he had persuaded himself) into the belief that the singular and constant charm of this river had no association with her, or with the quiet hours these two had passed there together. It was the stream talking to him that had fascinated him as he sat idly and listened. He had grown familiar with every cadence of that mysterious voice—now a whispering and laughing as the water chased over the sunny shallows—then a harsher note where the current, fretting and chafing, as it were, was broken by multitudes of stones—again a low murmur as the black river swept, dark and sullen, through a contracted channel—finally a fiercer tumult as this once-placid Aivron, increasing in pace and volume every moment, flung itself, lion-like, over the masses of rocks—its tawny mane upheaved to the daylight—and then fell, crashing and plunging, into a mighty chasm, the birchwoods around reverberating with its angry roar. Far away is the lonely sea. This friendly river may laugh or brawl as it will, but there is peace for it at last; its varying voices must eventually disappear in the dull, slow tumult of the distant world. And yet it seemed to him to complain as it went by—to appeal to him; and yet why to him, if he, too, was summoned away from this still solitude and sucked into a murmuring ocean still more awful than the sea?

"Well done, Miss Honnor!" old Robert called out.

Suddenly startled from his idle reverie, Lionel beheld the line being swiftly taken across to the other side of the river, sending up a little spurt of spray as it cleft the current.

"A good one this time, Robert, isn't it?" she cried.

"Ay, I'm thinking that's a good fish," old Robert made answer, as he rose from the bank and came down to her side.

"And there's a fair field and no favor," she continued. "Plenty of room for him—and he doesn't seem inclined to tug."

No, this was not a "jiggering" fish; but he was a pretty lively customer, for all that, as they were soon to find out. For, after having rested for a minute or so, he made a wild rush up-stream, still on the other side, that took a dangerous length of line out and kept her running after him, and winding up when possible as well as she was able. Farther and farther he went, until she had arrived at the junction of the Geinig and the Aivron, she being on the Geinig shore, and the fish making up the other stream. Here was a pleasant predicament!

"Mr. Moore," she called out, "take the rod and wade in!—I daren't give him more line—quick, quick, please!"

Her entreaty was quite pathetic in its earnestness; but old Robert was less excited.

"If Mr. Moore was not here you would be in the watter yourself, Miss Honnor," the old man said, with a smile.