"Yes, they're nice girls," answered Mr. Vandeleur, without looking off the table; "just the right kind of girls for a country-house: no starch, no prudishness, but as innocent as babies, and as true-hearted--well, they are all heart. I should be sorry to see anybody trifle with either of them. It would be a very serious thing for her--and it should be my business to make it serious for him." "Great advantage for a girl to have a brother who enjoys the reputation of being a dead shot," said Mr. Montagu, "or it would be if duelling were not an exploded institution--like trial for witchcraft, and hanging for petty larceny." "Duelling is never out of fashion, among gentlemen," answered Jack, making a cannon and going in off the red. "That makes seventeen, Monty. There are injuries which nothing but the pistol can redress, and I'm not sorry that my Red River experience has made me a pretty good shot. But I'm not half as good as Leonard. He could give me fifty in a hundred any day." "When a man has to keep his party in butcher's meat by the use of his rifle, he'd need be a decent marksman," answered Mr. Tregonell, carelessly. "I never knew the right use of a gun till I crossed the Rockies. By-the-way, who is for woodcock shooting to-morrow? You'll come, I suppose, Jack?" "Not to-morrow, thanks. Monty and I are going over to Bodmin to see a man hanged. We've got an order to view, as the house-agents call it. Monty is supposed to be on the _Times_. I go for the _Western Daily Mercury_." "What a horrid ghoulish thing to do," said Leonard. "It's seeing life," answered Jack, shrugging his shoulders. "I should call it the other thing. However, as crime is very rare in Cornwall, you may as well make the most of your opportunity. But it's a pity to neglect the birds. This is one of the best seasons we've had since 1860, when there was a remarkable flight of birds in the second week in October. But even that year wasn't as good as '55, when a farmer at St. Buryan killed close upon sixty birds in a week. You'll go to-morrow, I hope, Mr. Hamleigh? There's some very good ground about St. Nectan's Kieve, and it's a picturesque sort of place, that will just hit your fancy." "I have been to the Kieve, often--yes, it is a lovely spot," answered Angus, remembering his first visit to Mount Royal, and the golden afternoons which he had spent with Christabel among the rocks and the ferns, their low voices half drowned by the noise of the waterfall. "But I shan't be able to shoot to-morrow. I have just been making up my mind to tear myself away from Mount Royal, and I was going to ask you to let one of your grooms drive me over to Launceston in time for the mid-day train. I can get up from Plymouth by the Limited Mail." "Why are you in such a hurry?" asked Leonard. "I thought you were rather enjoying yourself with us."