The Fighting Chance. Chambers Robert William

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ passive inattention to quiet displeasure, for, as Siward rose from the table, he saw her turn on her heel and walk slowly toward a group of dogs presided over by some kennel men and gamekeepers.

      She was talking to the head gamekeeper when he emerged from the house, but she saw him on the terrace and gave him a bright nod of greeting, so close to an invitation that he descended the stone steps and crossed the dew-wet lawn.

      “I am asking Dawson to explain just exactly what a ‘Shotover Drive’ resembles,” she said, turning to include Siward in an animated conference with the big, scraggy, head keeper. “You know, Mr. Siward, that it is a custom peculiar to Shotover House to open the season with what is called a Shotover Drive?”

      “I heard Alderdene talking about it,” he said, smilingly inspecting the girl’s attire of khaki with its buttoned pockets, gun pads, and Cossack cartridge loops, and the tan knee-kilts hanging heavily pleated over gaiters and little thick-soled shoes. He had never cared very much to see women afield, for, in a rare case where there was no affectation, there was something else inborn that he found unpleasant—something lacking about a woman who could take life from frightened wild things, something shocking that a woman could look, unmoved, upon a twitching, blood-soiled heap of feathers at her feet.

      Meanwhile Dawson, dog-whip at salute, stood knee deep among his restless setters, explaining the ceremony with which Mr. Ferrall ushered in the opening of each shooting season:

      “It’s our own idee, Miss Landis,” he said proudly; “onc’t a season Mr. Ferrall and his guests likes it for a mixed bag. ‘Tis a sort of picnic, Miss; the guns is in pairs, sixty yards apart in line, an’ the rules is, walk straight ahead, dogs to heel until first cover is reached; fire straight or to quarter, never blankin’ nor wipin’ no eyes; and ground game counts as feathers for the Shotover Cup.”

      “Oh! It’s a skirmish line that walks straight ahead?” said Siward, nodding.

      “Straight ahead, Sir. No stoppin’, no turnin’ for hedges, fences, water or rock. There is boats f’r deep water and fords marked and corduroy f’r to pass the Seven Dreens. Luncheon at one, Miss—an hour’s rest—then straight on over hill, valley, rock, and river to the rondyvoo atop Osprey Ledge. You’ll see the poles and the big nests, Sir. It’s there they score for the cup, and there when the bag is counted, the traps are ready to carry you home again.”… And to Siward: “Will you draw for your lady, Sir? It is the custom.”

      “Are you my ‘lady’?” he asked, turning to Sylvia.

      “Do you want me?”

      In the smiling lustre of her eyes the tiniest spark flashed out at him—a hint of defiance for somebody, perhaps for Major Belwether who had taken considerable pains to enlighten her as to Siward’s condition the night before; perhaps also for Quarrier, who had naturally expected to act as her gun-bearer in emergencies. But the gaily veiled malice of the one had annoyed her, and the cold assumption of the other had irritated her, and she had, scarcely knowing why, turned her shoulder to both of these gentlemen with an indefinite idea of escaping a pressure, amounting almost to critical importunity.

      “I’m probably a poor shot?” she said, looking smilingly, straight into Siward’s eyes. “But if you’ll take me—”

      “I will with pleasure,” he said; “Dawson, do we draw for position? Very well then”; and he drew a slip of paper from the box offered by the head keeper.

      “Number seven!” said Sylvia, looking over his shoulder. “Come out to the starting line, Mr. Siward. All the positions are marked with golf-discs. What sort of ground have we ahead, Dawson?”

      “Kind o’ stiff, Miss,” grinned the keeper. “Pity your gentleman ain’t drawed the meadows an’ Sachem Hill line. Will you choose your dog, Sir?”

      “You have your dog, you know,” observed Sylvia demurely. And Siward, glancing among the impatient setters, saw one white, heavily feathered dog, straining at his leash, and wagging frantically, brown eyes fixed on him.

      The next moment Sagamore was free, devouring his master with caresses, the girl looking on in smiling silence; and presently, side by side, the man, the girl, and the dog were strolling off to the starting line where already people were gathering in groups, selecting dogs, fowling-pieces, comparing numbers, and discussing the merits of their respective lines of advance.

      Ferrall, busily energetic, and in high spirits, greeted them gaily, pointing out the red disc bearing their number, seven, where it stood out distinctly above the distant scrub of the foreland.

      “You two are certainly up against it!” he said, grinning. “There’s only one rougher line, and you’re in for thorns and water and a scramble across the back-bone of the divide!”

      “Is it any good?” asked Siward.

      “Good—if you’ve got the legs and Sylvia doesn’t play baby—”

      “I?” she said indignantly. “Kemp, you annoy me. And I will bet you now,” she added, flushing, “that your old cup is ours.”

      “Wait,” said Siward, laughing, “we may not shoot straight.”

      “You will! Kemp, I’ll wager whatever you dare!”

      “Gloves? Stockings?—against a cigarette case?” he suggested.

      “Done,” she said disdainfully, moving forward along the skirmish line with a nod and smile for the groups now disintegrating into couples, the Page boys with Eileen Shannon and Rena Bonnesdel, Marion Page followed by Alderdene, Mrs. Vendenning and Major Belwether and the Tassel girl convoyed by Leroy Mortimer. Farther along the line, taking post, she saw Quarrier and Miss Caithness, Captain Voucher with Mrs. Mortimer, and others too distant to recognise, moving across country with glitter and glint of sunlight on slanting gun barrels.

      And now Ferrall was climbing into his saddle beside his pretty wife, who sat her horse like a boy, the white flag lifted high in the sunshine, watching the firing line until the last laggard was in position.

      “All right, Grace!” said Ferrall briskly. Down went the white flag; the far-ranged line started into motion straight across country, dogs at heel.

      From her saddle Mrs. Ferrall could see the advance, strung out far afield from the dark spots moving along the Fells boundary, to the two couples traversing the salt meadows to north. Crack! A distant report came faintly over the uplands against the wind.

      “Voucher,” observed Ferrall; “probably a snipe. Hark! he’s struck them again, Grace.”

      Mrs. Ferrall, watching curiously, saw Siward’s gun fly up as two big dark spots floated up from the marsh and went swinging over his head. Crack! Crack! Down sheered the black spots, tumbling earthward out of the sky.

      “Duck,” said Ferrall; “a double for Stephen. Lord Harry! how that man can shoot! Isn’t it a pity that—”

      He said no more; his pretty wife astride her thoroughbred sat silent, grey eyes fixed on the distant figures of Sylvia Landis and Siward, now shoulder deep in the reeds.

      “Was it—very bad last night?” she asked in a low voice.

      Ferrall shrugged. “He was not offensive; he walked steadily enough up-stairs. When I went into his room he lay on the bed as if he’d been struck by lightning. And yet—you see how he is this morning?”

      “After a while,” his wife said, СКАЧАТЬ