Roland could scarcely master his passion or the impulse to club his fowling-piece and knock the fellow down. 'Mr. Sharpe,' said he in a low voice that seemed all unlike his own, so low and husky was it, as he beckoned Hawkey aside, 'considering the rudeness of which I understand you were guilty last night, I wonder that you have the bad taste to address me at all, or thrust yourself upon our society.' 'Thrust--Captain Lindsay!' exclaimed Sharpe, in turn suppressing his rage. 'Yes--I repeat that considering there was something--I scarcely know what--amounting to a fracas between my friend Captain Elliot and you, I also wonder--nathless your relative and assumed position in this house--that you venture to join my party this morning.' It was the first time that Roland had spoken so plainly to this obnoxious personage. 'I don't quite understand all your words imply,' replied the latter with an assumption of dignity and would-be _hauteur_ that sat grotesquely upon him. 'I am in the house of my sister, Mrs. Lindsay of Earlshaugh, who has accorded me permission to shoot, and shoot I shall whether you like it or not!' 'For the last time, I trust,' muttered Roland under his moustache. 'That we shall see,' was the mocking remark of Hawkey, who overheard him. Roland turned abruptly away, loth to excite comment or surprise among his friends by the strange bearing of one deemed by them his mere dependent. So the shooting progressed, and for a time without let or impediment. Away through the King's Wood and the Fairy's Den went the sportsmen, over the harvest fields, so rich in beauty to the picture-loving eye, by the green and scented hawthorn hedgerows, where the golden spoil of the passing corn carts remained for the gleaner; among brambles and red fern--the crimson bracken that, according to the Scottish proverb, brings milk and butter in October; firing in line, as adjusted by old Gavin Fowler; and as their guns went off, bang, bang, bang, in the clear and ambient air, when the startled coveys went whirring up, the brown birds came tumbling down with outspread wings, before the double barrels.