"Didn't any of that great pack come near you?" asked the Admiral sympathetically.

"No--don't think so," said Dermott shortly.

I had counted eight birds flying straight over his butt myself, but I said nothing. I was beginning to comprehend. _Et ego in Arcadia vixi_.

But the obtuse master-mariner persisted.

"How about that brace that flew right down the line? You must have seen 'em coming all the way. You didn't even try a shot at them, man!"

Dermott, who was fastening up his gaiter, answered rather listlessly--

"Sorry! It was--a misfire, I think."

"What?" cried the outraged Admiral. "A _misfire_? Both barrels--of both guns?"

I did not hear the answer to this. I was looking at Dolly. Her face could not be seen, for she was kneeling down a little distance away, assiduously fondling the silky ears of a highly-gratified red setter.

And I realised then that some expressions are capable of a metaphorical as well as a literal interpretation.

IV.

My wife and daughter returned home in the "machine" in time for dinner, without Robin.

"His mother kept him," Kitty explained. She was favouring me with a summary of her day's adventures, in the garden after dinner. "Such an old dear, Adrian! And his father is a grand old man. Very solemn and scriptural-looking and all that, but so courtly and simple when once he gets over his shyness. (He tried to come in to tea in his shirt-sleeves, but his wife hustled him out of the kitchen just in time.) Sir James Fordyce was a shock, though. When we arrived he was chopping turnips in a machine, dressed in clothes like any farm-labourer's. He said it was fine to get back to his own people again. To look at him you would never guess that he was one of the best known men in London, and a favourite at Court, and _such_ an old dandy in Bond Street. The rest of the household didn't seem to set any particular store by him. They took him quite as a matter of course."

"What a pity English people can't do the same," I mused. "If they do possess a distinguished relative they brag about him, and he usually responds by avoiding them. If he does honour them with a visit, they try to live up to him, and put on unnecessary frills, and summon all the neighbourhood to come and inspect him."

"There's nothing of that kind about the Fordyces," said Kitty. "Sir James was just one of themselves; he even spoke like them. It was, 'Aye, Jeems!' and 'Aye, John!' all the time."

"How about the rest of the family?" I inquired.

"The mother was immensely pleased to have Robin with her again, I could see," said Kitty. "She made no particular fuss over him, but I'm sure she simply hugged him as soon as we were gone. She had a talk with me about him when we were alone. She seems to regard him as the least successful member of the family, although he has been a good son to them. (Do you know, Adrian, he has sent them something like two hundred pounds during the time he has been with us? And that must have left him little enough to go on with, goodness knows!) But I don't think they consider him a patch on the eldest son, who is a great silent man with a beard--a sort of Scotch John Ridd. He looks years older than Robin, though of course he isn't. He is a splendid farmer, his mother tells me, and greatly "respeckit" in the district. But the poor dear was so frightened of me that he simply bolted from the house the moment he had finished his tea. The sister is pretty, and nice too, but shy. I'm afraid she found my clothes rather overpowering, though I'd only a coat and skirt on. But we got on splendidly after that. She is going to be married next month, to the minister, which is considered an immense triumph for her by the whole community. We must send them a present. By the way, what's the matter with Dolly?"

"What's the matter with poor old Dermott?" I retorted.

At this moment the much-enduring "machine" jingled up to the door, and Captain Dermott's luggage, together with his gun-cases and a generous bundle of game for the mess-table at Aldershot, was piled in at the back. Their owner followed after, and seeing the glowing end of my cigar in the dark, advanced to say good-bye.

Kitty uttered some pretty expression of regret at his departure, and flitted into the house. Dermott and I surveyed each other silently through the darkness.

"Is it any use asking you to come and look us up in town?" I said at last rather lamely.

He laughed through set teeth--not a pretty sound.

"I think I'll--avoid your household for a bit, Adrian," he answered.

I nodded gravely.

"I see," I said. "I--I'm sorry, old man!"

"I'm going to India, if I can get away," he continued, after a pause.

"Good scheme!" I replied. "We shall think of you most kindly--er, _all_ of us."

He said nothing, but shook hands in a grateful sort of fashion, and turned away.

I suppose there is a reason for everything in this world. Still, the spectacle of a good man fighting dumbly with a cruel disappointment--and disappointment is perhaps the bitterest pill in all the pharmacopeia of life--is certainly a severe test of one's convictions on the subject.

At this moment the rest of the party--_minus_ Dolly--flowed out on to the doorstep to say farewell; and two minutes later Captain Dermott drove heavily away--back to his day's work.

Well, thank God there is always that!

"I thought she was going to take him," said Kitty in her subsequent summing-up. "It was far and away the best offer she has ever had. And he is such a dear, too! What does the child want, I wonder! A coronet?"

"'A dinner of herbs,' perhaps," said I.

Kitty eyed me thoughtfully, and gave a wise little nod.

"Yes--Dolly is just that sort," she agreed. "But what makes you think that?"

"Oh--nothing," I said.

There are certain matters upon which it is almost an impertinence for a man to offer an opinion to a woman, and I rather shrank from rushing in where my wife had evidently not thought it worth while to tread. Still, I could not help wondering in my heart whether the arrival of one gentleman on Sunday may not sometimes have something to do, however indirectly, with the abrupt departure of another gentleman on Monday.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE COMPLEAT ANGLER.

The Division of Stoneleigh, which had hitherto done me the honour of returning me as its Member of Parliament, is a triangular tract of country in the north of England.

At the apex of the triangle lies Stoneleigh itself, a township whose chief assets are an ancient cathedral at one end, and a flourishing industry, proclaiming to the heavens its dependence upon Hides and Tallow, at the other. The base of the triangle runs along the sea-coast, and is dotted with fishing villages. Most of the intervening area is under cultivation.

It will be seen, then, that the character of my constituency varied in a perplexing manner, and while I could usually depend upon what I may call the Turnip interest, I could not always count with absolute certainty on the whole-hearted support of the Fish or Hides-and-Tallow.

To this delectable microcosm my household and I migrated one bleak day in February, to commence what promised to be an arduous and thoroughly uncomfortable electoral campaign.

The Government had gone out at last, more from inanition than over any definite question of policy; and we were going to the country to face what is paradoxically termed "the music." It would be a General Election in every sense of the word, for there was no particular question of the hour--this was before the days of Passive Resistance and Tariff Reform--and our chief bar to success would undoubtedly be our old and inveterate enemy, "the pendulum." Of course we were distributing leaflets galore, and blazoning panegyrics on our own legislative achievements over every hoarding in the country--especially where our opponents had already posted up scathing denunciations of the same--and of course we declared that we were going to come again, like King Arthur; but I think most of us realised in our hearts that the great British Public, having decided in its ponderous but not altogether unreasonable way that any change of government must be for the better, was now going to pull us down from the eminence to which we had been precariously clinging for five years, and set up another row of legislative Aunt Sallies in our stead.

However, we were far from admitting this. We wore our favours, waved our hats, and celebrated our approaching triumph with as great an appearance of optimism as the loss of seven consecutive by-elections would permit.

Our party--Kitty, Phillis, Dolly, and myself: Dilly and Dicky were to follow, and Robin had preceded us by two days--was met at the station by an informal but influential little deputation, consisting of Mr Cash, my agent, a single-minded creature who would cheerfully have done his best to get Mephistopheles returned as member if he had been officially appointed to further that gentleman's interests; old Colonel Vincey, who would as cheerfully have voted for the same candidate provided he wore Conservative colours; Mr Bugsley, a leading linen-draper and ex-Mayor of the town, vice-chairman of our local organisation; Mr Winch--locally known as Beery Bill--the accredited mouthpiece of the Stoneleigh liquor interest; and the Dean, who came, I was uncharitable enough to suspect even as he wrung my hand, on business not unconnected with the unfortunate deficit in the fund for the restoration of the North Transept. There were also present one or two reporters, and a _posse_ of the offscourings of Stoneleigh small-boydom.