But Miss Stockman, Joseph's only child, had not come about the rabbits. She was a woman resembling her father in no respect. Her hair was black, lustreless and rough, her brown face disfigured by a "port wine" stain that descended from her forehead to her cheek. Her expression was anxious and careworn, and though large-boned and powerfully made, she was thin. She had brown, dog-like eyes, a mouth with sad lips and a pleading voice, which seemed to have the same querulous note as the hawks that so often hung in air above her home. "Mr. Maynard's box have come, father," she said. "Be he to live in the house, or to go in the tallet over the stables? Both rooms are sweet and ready for 'em." "Trust you for that, Soosie," declared Melinda. "The horseman goes over the stables, as being the right and proper place for him," said Mr. Stockman. "And if there was a dwelling room over the cows, the cowman would go there. But there is not, so he'll come in the house." "Right then," answered his daughter. "Mr. Maynard comes in the house; Mr. Palk goes over the hosses." Susan disappeared and Mrs. Honeysett prepared to depart. "And you tell your father that so soon as the woodcock be back--not long now--he'll have the first. I don't bear no malice." "We all know that. And when you shoot it, you come in and have a tell with father. You do him good." "And you too I hope?" "Of course you do--such a long-sighted man as you." She descended down the farm road to the highway beneath, and Joseph, getting his gun, went upwards with his rejoicing dogs into the fern brakes on the side of the Beacon. Here, in the pursuit of the only exercise he really loved, Joe Stockman forgot his alleged years. He was a wonderfully steady shot, though it suited him to pretend that failing sight interfered very seriously with his sport; but he excelled still in the difficult business of snapping rabbits in fern. Thus engaged, with his dogs to help him, he became oblivious of weather and it was not until the sight of an approaching stranger arrested him that he grew conscious of the rain. Then he turned up his collar over his blue woollen shirt and swore.