Christmas came, was celebrated with much festivity. On Boxing Day there was a big partridge drive over a distant corner of the estate. It had been carefully saved for this one day's sport and the birds were accordingly plentiful. The best portion of it--a field sloping from a ridge and skirting a pine wood and then merging into a wide gorse-covered pasture tract--was reserved till after lunch. But the sport was good in the outlying approaches to this, and it was not without some irritation that Thornton tore open a telegram which a breathless messenger brought up. It announced the birth of a son. Thornton went on with the line across the wet, ploughed fields, but until they halted for lunch luck did not come his way. Mrs. Clavering and the other ladies had walked over with the luncheon-baskets. The day was warm and relaxing. They lingered over the meal longer than they had intended. When a keeper came up and suggested that if they wanted to shoot the slope before dusk they had better be starting, the men sprang up in a hurry and betook themselves thither. Thornton was the extreme man, on the right, near the pine wood, which was being beaten. His ill-success in the morning had piqued his vanity. He was not accustomed to be second or third in matters of prowess. After he had brought down his first brace his whole frame was kindled with the desire to slay. Even partridges he could not kill calmly. Covey after covey was driven out of the wood, and as he had the first chance, his bag increased speedily. They had thus proceeded halfway down the long, straggling slope. The keeper by Thornton's side had just handed him his gun, and was watching the wood with intent, outstretched hand. A covey was being driven. At that moment another messenger, a boy, ran down the slope and put a telegram into Thornton's hand. With an impatient oath he stuffed it into the pocket of his shooting-coat, just in time to be able to fire his two barrels into the whirring flight of birds. The next man to him fired simultaneously. Two birds fell. The warm dispute that arose caused Thornton to forget the existence of the telegram in his pocket. And the continuance of the drive kept his mind entirely from it. But when the party arrived home, and were standing for a moment in the hall, Mrs. Clavering came up to him and asked whether he had received his second telegram safely. Then he remembered. He drew it out, read it. “Damn!” he muttered under his breath, and crumpling the flimsy sheet into a ball, threw it with a gesture of impatience into the fireplace. Then he turned and talked with Mrs. Clavering until he went upstairs to change.