Canada, Western -- Fiction; Farm life -- Canada -- Fiction; Married people -- Fiction
Terry glanced at Leland with a little uplifting of his brows, and again
addressed the groom.
"You can't pack all of us into that dog-cart, and it's four miles,
anyway, to the edge of Garberry moor," he said. "Do you know how we are
expected to get there?"
"Mr. Parsons of the Dell farm keeps a smart cart, and he promised to
lend it Mr. James when he heard we had the tire loose on our other one.
It should have been here."
"Then why isn't it?"
Leland fancied that a suspicion of a smile flickered in the man's eyes.
"I don't know, sir, unless Mr. James forgot to let him know when we
wanted it."
"I should consider it very probable," said Terry drily. "Have you any
objections to walking on as far as the Dell, Leland? It wouldn't
astonish me greatly if Jimmy kept us waiting an hour yet."
Leland having no objections, they strode away together. Beech-mast
crackled underfoot between the colonnades of lichened trunks, whose
great branches stayed the high, vaulted roof of gold and crimson leaves.
Looking out through the openings between, one could see the sweep of
rolling champaign stretch away into the horizon through gradations of
blueness, and the rigid line of the fells smeared with warm brown
patches of withered bracken.
"It's rather a shame that Jimmy and his father should have a place of
this kind in their hands at all," said Terry. "Still, for the credit of
the country, I should like to explain that there are not very many
English properties run on the same lines. In fact, the Denhams are an
exception to everything, but I really think Jimmy might have got up in
time for once in a way."
Leland laughed. "The loss of an hour's shooting seems to count with
you."
"It does. You see, like a good many other people, I have to work rather
hard for my living, and time is of a little more value to me than it
apparently is to Jimmy Denham. Besides, my stay here has cost me a good
deal more than I expected, and, being engaged in commerce, I can't help
feeling that I ought to get something in return for my money."
"I don't quite understand that last remark."
"No?" said Terry. "Well, perhaps you don't. In fact, I have had a fancy
that you were a bona-fide guest. You see, two or three of us aren't."
"Will you make that a little clearer?" And Leland looked astonished,
though he remembered now several little incidents that had struck him as
strange.
"With pleasure. Indeed, I feel I owe it to Jimmy for his losing us an
hour or two every day. Our amusement costs two or three of us a good
deal directly, as well as the other way. Branscombe Denham, naturally,
doesn't advertise Barrock-holme as a shooting hotel, but, though affairs
are arranged more tastefully, it amounts to much the same thing. You
share expenses of watching and turning down hand-reared birds, and you
get so many days' shooting with entertainment thrown in. The latter,
however, is usually costly. One way or the other, Jimmy has taken one
hundred pounds out of me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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