‘I’m not sure but that I’d prefer to hear the guns blattering to-day,’ I went on. ‘Things must be bad, Terry. I never heard a Twelfth like this before. Nor any one else. It’d be better to hear the guns—if we knew they were shooting grouse.’

‘We know things are bad,’ she told me. ‘Duncan said—’

‘He didn’t say much,’ I interrupted.

‘Not with his tongue, Hugh.’

‘It’s a wonder we haven’t seen any one,’ she continued. ‘If the country is full of deserters and stragglers—’

‘He warned us,’ I put in.

‘And soldiers rounding them up—’ she added.

I rose to my feet and stretched myself.

‘He could have told us much more than he did,’ she said. ‘He was saving us, hiding the worst from us—where are you going, Hugh?’

‘To kill a grouse, Terry,’ I answered. ‘We’ve always had a grouse on the Twelfth.’

She jumped up beside me and caught my arm.

‘Don’t go, Hugh,’ she begged earnestly. ‘Please don’t go! maybe it’s a bad sign for human folk, this quiet Twelfth, but men’s misfortune has this much good in it, that it makes a truce for the poor birds of the country. Hugh, there’ll be other times when we’re more needing food. We’ll let this Twelfth be a holiday from killing.’

‘We used to reckon that we could use the new potatoes from the field by the Twelfth of August,’ I said, sitting down again.

‘Don’t make my mouth water,’ she reproached me. ‘I’ve been longing for new potatoes—’

‘With milk and fresh butter,’ I suggested.

‘Why are you tempting me!’ she cried.

Next day, in the evening, I took Duncan’s rifle and slipped a handful of cartridges into my pocket.

‘Where are you going, Hugh?’ Terry demanded. ‘Why are you taking that rifle? Won’t it make a loud noise?’

‘I’m leaving the.22 with you,’ I answered, ‘in case a grouse comes near while I’m away. Don’t sit up for me, Terry, it may be morning before I come back.’

‘Can’t I come?’ she begged. ‘I’ll not be a nuisance. I won’t be tired or in the way—listen!’

She tiptoed through a brake of long heather.

‘You didn’t hear that, did you?’ she asked triumphantly. ‘The deer won’t take fright from my step, I’ll walk so lightly. I’ll tread as soft as a mouse.’

I could not help laughing at her sober face.

‘Another time,’ I put her off.

‘Why not this time?’ she demanded. ‘I know,’ she went on, ‘you’re not going after a deer at all, Hugh. You’re planning something and you don’t want to tell me.’