"Well, perhaps better not. To tell the truth, I'm not very fond of young men who take to shooting without having anything to shoot at. By-the-by, now I think of it, I'll send your mother some game." It may, however, here be fair to mention that game very often came from Guestwick Manor to Mrs. Eames. "And look here, cold pheasant for breakfast is the best thing I know of. Pheasants at dinner are rubbish,--mere rubbish. Here we are at the house. Will you come in and have a glass of wine?" But this John Eames declined, pleasing the earl better by doing so than he would have done by accepting it. Not that the lord was inhospitable or insincere in his offer, but he preferred that such a one as John Eames should receive his proffered familiarity without too much immediate assurance. He felt that Eames was a little in awe of his companion's rank, and he liked him the better for it. He liked him the better for it, and was a man apt to remember his likings. "If you won't come in, good-by," and he gave Johnny his hand. "Good evening, my lord," said Johnny. "And remember this; it is the deuce of a thing to have rheumatism in your loins. I wouldn't go to sleep under a tree, if I were you,--not in October. But you're always welcome to go anywhere about the place." "Thank you, my lord." "And if you should take to shooting,--but I dare say you won't; and if you come to trouble, and want advice, or that sort of thing, write to me. I knew your father well." And so they parted, Eames returning on his road towards Guestwick. For some reason, which he could not define, he felt better after his interview with the earl. There had been something about the fat, good-natured, sensible old man, which had cheered him, in spite of his sorrow. "Pheasants for dinner are rubbish,--mere rubbish," he said to himself, over and over again, as he went along the road; and they were the first words which he spoke to his mother, after entering the house. "I wish we had some of that sort of rubbish," said she. "So you will, to-morrow;" and then he described to her his interview. "The earl was, at any rate, quite right about lying upon the ground. I wonder you can be so foolish. And he is right about your poor father too. But you have got to change your boots; and we shall be ready for dinner almost immediately." But Johnny Eames, before he sat down to dinner, did write his letter to Amelia, and did go out to post it with his own hands,--much to his mother's annoyance. But the letter would not get itself written in that strong and appropriate language which had come to him as he was roaming through the woods. It was a bald letter, and somewhat cowardly withal.