ey come in his way, with all the
ferocity of a modern Herod.

"I think I've spoiled Winstanley's coverts for this year, at any rate,"
he said to himself, as he tramped homewards in the early darkness, with
no small hazard of losing himself in one of those ghostly plantations,
which were all exactly alike, and in which a man might walk all day
long without meeting anything nearer humanity than a trespassing forest
pony that had leapt a fence in quest of more sufficing food than the
scanty herbage of the open woods.

Lord Mallow got on better than might have been expected. He went east
when he ought to have gone west, and found himself in Queen's Bower
when he fancied himself in Gretnam Wood; but he did not walk more than
half-a-dozen miles out of his way, and he got home somehow at last,
which was much for a stranger to the ground.

The stable clock was chiming the quarter before six when he went into
the hall, where Vixen had left him in anger that morning. The great
wood fire was burning gaily, and Captain Winstanley was sitting in a
Glastonbury chair in front of it. "Went for the birds after all, old
fellow," he said, without looking round, recognising the tread of Lord
Mallow's shooting-boots. "You found it too dismal in the house, I
suppose? Consistently abominable weather, isn't it? You must be soaked
to the skin."

"I suppose I am," answered the other carelessly. "But I've been soaked
a good many times before, and it hasn't done me much harm. Thanks to
the modern inventions of the waterproof-makers, the soaking begins
inside instead of out. I should call myself parboiled."

"Take off your oilskins and come and talk. You'll have a nip, won't
you?" added Captain Winstanley, ringing the bell. "Kirschenwasser,
curacoa, Glenlivat--which shall it be?"

"Glenlivat," answered Lord Mallow, "and plenty of it. I'm in the humour
in which a man must either drink inordinately or cut his throat."

"Were the birds unapproachable?" asked Captain Winstanley, laughing;
"or were the dogs troublesome?"

"Birds and dogs were perfect; but---- Well, I suppose I'd better make a
clean breast of it. I've had a capital time here---- Oh, here comes the
whisky. Hold your hand, old fellow!" cried Lord Mallow, as his host
poured the Glenlivat somewhat recklessly into a soda-water tumbler.
"You mustn't take me too literally. Just moisten the bottom of the
glass with whisky before you put in the soda. That's as much as I care
about."