"By the Lord, they’ll get a warm reception if they try that!" young Stanley broke in. "I can tell you, from what I’ve heard of him, Colonel Tomlins isn’t the sort of man to let a lot of vagabonds march past Glen Orme Lodge and take possession of the forest—I should think not. The ragged army will find a sufficient force awaiting them—keepers, foresters, gillies, and the guns of the house-party: there may be driving—but it won’t be the deer that will be driven off." "That as it may be," said Meredyth, with much calmness. "But even if there is a scrimmage up there, what has that got to do with us? I don’t care a brass farthing about the Glen Orme deer; I want to see your sister safe. And if the torrent of revolution flows peacefully past this house, and goes to expend itself in Glen Orme—let it, and welcome!" "Yes, but that is too much to expect," Fred Stanley said, gloomily. "It is my sister who will be preached against by those fanatics. It is she who is the representative here of the landlord interest. Gratitude!—it’s precious little gratitude they’ll show, when they have this fellow Donald Ross secretly egging them on. Of course, he is annoyed that you and I should have come up to interfere with him; he thought he would only have a woman to deal with; and that the keepers could make all kinds of excuses to her. But now he finds it different. I imagine he knows very well that he is suspected and watched, and that there is a chance of his being caught at any moment—a chance that I mean to make a certainty of before I leave this place!" "My young friend," said Meredyth, dispassionately, "I’m afraid you are becoming _entêté_ about this Donald Ross. And yet I don’t wonder at it. I’ve seen a similar state of affairs, many a time, before now. The fact is, when once you suspect poaching, the suspicion becomes a sort of mania, and all your comfort in the shooting is gone. It is precisely the same on board a yacht. If you once suspect your skipper or your steward of drinking, it’s all over with you; you are always looking out—mistrusting—imagining; you may as well go ashore at once, or get another skipper or steward. Of course, the poaching is still more vexatious; for you feel you are being defied and cheated at the same time; and you want revenge; and the poacher is generally a devil of a clever fellow. But, after all, Fred, your sister is right: even if you are convinced that there is poaching going on—as there has certainly been some little ill-will shown against us now and then—still, you have nothing to prove that Donald Ross is the culprit—nothing." "I will catch him yet," said Fred Stanley under his breath.