Scoutbush is standing with Trebooze beyond the bar, upon a little lawn set thick with alders.  Trebooze is fussing and fidgetting about, wiping his forehead perpetually; telling everybody to get out of the way, and not to interfere; then catching hold of Scoutbush’s button to chatter in his face; then, starting aside to put some part of his dress to rights.  His usual lazy drawl is exchanged for foolish excitement.  Two or three more gentlemen, tired of Trebooze’s absurdities, are scrambling over the rocks above, in search of spraints.  Old Tardrew waddles stooping along the line where grass and shingle meet, his bulldog visage bent to his very knees.

“Tardrew out hunting?” says Campbell.  “Why, it is but a week since his daughter was buried!”

“And why not?  I like him better for it.  Would he bring her back again by throwing away a good day’s sport?  Better turn out, as he has done, and forget his feelings, if he has any.”

“He has feelings enough, don’t doubt.  But you are right.  There is something very characteristic in the way in which the English countryman never shows grief, never lets it interfere with business, even with pleasure.”

“Hillo!  Mr. Trebooze!” says the old fellow, looking up.  “Here it is!”

“Spraint?—­Spraint?—­Spraint?—­Where?  Eh—­what?” cries Trebooze.

“No; but what’s as good:  here on this alder stump, not an hour old.  I thought they beauties starns weren’t flemishing for nowt.”

“Here!  Here!  Here!  Here!  Musical, Musical!  Sweetlips!  Get out of the way!”—­and Trebooze runs down.

Musical examines, throws her nose into the air, and answers by the rich bell-like note of the true otter hound; and all the woodlands ring as the pack dashes down the shingle to her call.

“Over!” shouts Tom.  “Here’s the fresh spraint our side!”

Through the water splash squire, viscount, steward, and hounds, to the horror of a shoal of par, the only visible tenants of a pool, which, after a shower of rain, would be alive with trout.  Where those trout are in the meanwhile is a mystery yet unsolved.

Over dances the little terrier, yapping furiously, and expending his superfluous energy by snapping right and left at the par.

“Hark to Musical! hark to Sweetlips!  Down the stream?—­No! the old girl has it; right up the bank!”

“How do, Doctor?  How do, Major Campbell?  Forward!—­Forward!—­Forward!” shouts Trebooze, glad to escape a longer parley, as with his spear in his left hand, he clutches at the overhanging boughs with his right, and swings himself up, with Peter, the huntsman, after him.  Tom follows him; and why?

Because he does not like his looks.  That bull-eye is red, and almost bursting; his cheeks are flushed, his lips blue, his hand shakes; and Tom’s quick eye has already remarked, from a distance, over and above his new fussiness, a sudden shudder, a quick half-frightened glance behind him; and perceived, too, that the moment Musical gave tongue, he put the spirit-flask to his mouth.