The major chatted on with great cheerfulness.  He clearly considered that he had got into excellent quarters.  At dinner he told some of his most famous Indian stories to Lady Beauregard, near whom he was sitting; and at night, in the improvised smoking-room, he was great on deer-stalking.  It was not necessary for Macleod, or anybody else, to talk.  The major was in full flow, though he stoutly refused to touch the spirits on the table.  He wanted a clear head and a steady hand for the morning.

Alas! alas!  The next morning presented a woful spectacle.  Gray skies; heavy and rapidly drifting clouds; pouring rain; runnels of clear water by the side of every gravel-path; a rook or two battling with the squally south-wester high over the wide and desolate park:  the wild-ducks at the margin of the ruffled lake flapping their wings as if the wet was too much even for them; nearer at hand the firs and evergreens all dripping.  After breakfast the male guests wandered disconsolately into the cold billiard-room, and began knocking the balls about.  All the loquacious cheerfulness of the major had fled.  He looked out on the wet park and the sombre woods, and sighed.

But about twelve o’clock there was a great hurry and confusion throughout the house; for all of a sudden the skies in the west cleared; there was a glimmer of blue; and then gleams of a pale wan light began to stream over the landscape.  There was a rash to the gun-room, and an eager putting on of shooting-boots and leggings; there was a rapid tying up of small packages of sandwiches; presently the wagonette was at the door.  And then away they went over the hard gravel, and out into the wet roads, with the sunlight now beginning to light up the beautiful woods about Crawley.  The horses seemed to know there was no time to lose.  A new spirit took possession of the party.  The major’s face glowed as red as the hip that here and there among the almost leafless hedges shone in the sunlight on the ragged brier stem.

And yet it was about one o’clock before the work of the day began, for the beaters had to be summoned from various parts, and the small boys with the white flags—­the “stops”—­had to be posted so as to check runners.  And then the six guns went down over a ploughed field—­half clay and half chalk, and ankle deep—­to the margin of a rapidly running and coffee-colored stream, which three of them had to cross by means of a very shaky plank.  Lord Beauregard, Major Stuart, and Macleod remained on this side, keeping a lookout for a straggler, but chiefly concerned with the gradually opening and brightening sky.  Then far away they heard a slight tapping on the trees; and almost at the same moment another sound caused the hearts of the two novices to jump.  It was a quick cuck-cuck, accompanied by a rapid and silken winnowing of the air.  Then an object, which seemed like a cannon-ball with a long tail attached, came whizzing along.  Major Stuart fired—­a bad miss.  Then he wheeled round, took good aim, and down came a mass of feathers, whirling, until it fell motionless on the ground.