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"I say, Waveney," Sir Hugh remarked, as they paused for a moment to have a sip of cold tea, for the day was hot, "you'd better confess it; you put up the old minister to give us that frightfully long service this morning. It was a joke on Lord Fareborough now, wasn't it?" "It may have been; but I had nothing to do with it, anyway," was the answer. "Not I. Too serious a joke.
There's Sir Hugh and my brother away all day; Lord Fareborough has never come out of his room since the morning he tried deer-stalking; and what can Lord Rockminster find to arouse him in a pack of girls? Oh, I know what he thinks of us," she continued, very placidly. "I remember, if he chooses to forget.
"Sir Hugh be " And here Lord Fareborough expressed a wish about his son-in-law and host that was probably only a figure of speech. "I don't know about that; but at present the arrangement is that we lunch at the top of the Bad Step; and I believe that Miss Cunyngham is coming back from the Junction Pool, so that Lady Rosamund may have her sketch complete."
"I assure you it was a practical joke that Captain Waveney played upon the whole of you. He gave the minister a little hint and the thing was done." Lord Fareborough glared at the culprit as if he expected to see the heavens fall upon him; but Lady Adela observed, with a touch of dignity,
"Oh, no," she said, "he never went out but that once, and then he nearly killed himself, according to his own account. We never quite knew what happened; there was some dark mystery that Roderick wouldn't explain; and, you know, Lord Fareborough himself is rather short-tempered. He ought not to have gone out a man who has imagined himself into that hypochondriacal state.
Otherwise he would be a regular bull in a china shop. And surely, when you get a number of people in a remote place like Strathaivron, the efforts of amateurs to amuse them should be encouraged and approved. I thought it was very unselfish of them very kind though they generally succeeded in sending Lord Fareborough to bed. By the way, Miss Cunyngham, did Lord Fareborough ever get a stag?"
"God bless my soul!" exclaimed Lord Fareborough, aloud; and Lady Adela flushed quickly; for it was not seemly of her father to give way to such anger before those keen-eyed and keen-eared Highland servants. However, the Rev. Mr. MacNachten took no heed. He began to sing, in a slow and raucous fashion, and to the melancholy tune of "Ballerma,"
She was right about one thing, anyway; the sportsmen were undoubtedly impatient to be off; and it is to be feared that Lady Rosamund's sketch suffered by the restlessness of her models. Indeed, after a very little while, Lord Fareborough indignantly rose, and declared he never had known a Twelfth of August so shamelessly sacrificed. He, for one, would have no more of it.
Lord Fareborough especially after dinner, when his nervous system was still in dark deliberation as to what it meant to do with him was too awful a personage to be approached; Honnor Cunyngham good-humoredly said that she was too stupid to join in; and Lord Rockminster declared that if that was her excuse, it applied much more obviously to himself.
Why, God bless my soul! the idea that you are to try to pacify these ignorant savages " But here Lionel, who began to fancy that he had discovered another Octavius Quirk, was afforded relief; for the minister himself appeared; and at the very sight of him Lord Fareborough indignantly quitted the room.
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