y. She declared to herself that she did not
wish to see Frank Tregear again; but still it was a misery to her
that his heart should in truth be given to another woman.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Crummie-Toddie

Almost at the last moment Silverbridge and his brother Gerald were
induced to join Lord Popplecourt's shooting-party in Scotland. The
party perhaps might more properly be called the party of Reginald
Dobbes, who was a man knowing in such matters. It was he who made
the party up. Popplecourt and Silverbridge were to share the expense
between them, each bringing three guns. Silverbridge brought his
brother and Frank Tregear,--having refused a most piteous petition
on the subject from Major Tifto. With Popplecourt of course came
Reginald Dobbes, who was, in truth, to manage everything, and Lord
Nidderdale, whose wife had generously permitted him this recreation.
The shooting was in the west of Perthshire, known as Crummie-Toddie,
and comprised an enormous acreage of so-called forest and moor. Mr.
Dobbes declared that nothing like it had as yet been produced in
Scotland. Everything had been made to give way to deer and grouse.
The thing had been managed so well that the tourist nuisance had been
considerably abated. There was hardly a potato patch left in the
district, nor a head of cattle to be seen. There were no inhabitants
remaining, or so few that they could be absorbed in game-preserving
or cognate duties. Reginald Dobbes, who was very great at grouse,
and supposed to be capable of outwitting a deer by venatical wiles
more perfectly than any other sportsman in Great Britain, regarded
Crummie-Toddie as the nearest thing there was to a Paradise on earth.
Could he have been allowed to pass one or two special laws for his
own protection, there might still have been improvement. He would
like the right to have all intruders thrashed by the gillies within
an inch of their lives; and he would have had a clause in his lease
against the making of any new roads, opening of footpaths, or
building of bridges. He had seen somewhere in print a plan for
running a railway from Callender to Fort Augustus right through
Crummie-Toddie! If this were done in his time the beauty of the
world would be over. Reginald Dobbes was a man of about forty,
strong, active, well-made, about five feet ten in height, with broad
shoulders and greatly-developed legs. He was not a handsome man,
having a protrusive nose, high cheek-bones, and lon