“My dear, don’t you know it is a part of the privilege of a free-born Englishman to delight in hunting ‘rats and mice and such small beer,’ as much or more than the grand chasse?  I have not the smallest doubt that all the old cavaliers were fine old farm-loving fellows, who liked a rat hunt, and enjoyed turning out a barn with all their hearts.”

“There goes Fred!” cried Henrietta.

“Ah! capital.  He takes to it by nature, you see.  There—­there!  O what a scene it is!  Look how beautifully the sun comes in, making that solid sort of light on the mist of dust at the top.”

“And how beautifully it falls on grandpapa’s head!  I think that grandpapa with little Tom is one of the best parts of the picture, Bee.”

“To be sure he is, that noble old head of his, and that beautiful gentle face; and to see him pointing, and soothing the child when he gets frightened at the hubbub, and then enjoying the victories over the poor rats as keenly as anybody!”

“Certainly,” said Henrietta, “there is something very odd in man’s nature; they can like to do such cruel-sounding things without being cruel!  Grandpapa, or Fred, or Uncle Roger, or Alex now, they are as kind and gentle as possible:  yet the delight they can take in catching and killing—­”

“That is what town-people never can understand,” said Beatrice, “that hunting-spirit of mankind.  I hate above all things to hear it cried down, and the nonsense that is talked about it.  I only wish that those people could have seen what I did last summer—­grandpapa calling Carey, and holding the ladder for him while he put the young birds into their nest that had fallen out.  And O the uproar that there was one day when Dick did something cruel to a poor rabbit; it was two or three years ago, and Alex and Carey set upon him and thrashed him so that they were really punished for it, bad as it was of Dick; it was one of those bursts of generous indignation.”

“It is a very curious thing,” said Henrietta, “the soldier spirit it must be, I suppose—­”

“What are you philosophising about, young ladies?” asked Mr. Langford, coming up as Henrietta said these last words.

“Only about the spirit of the chase, grandpapa,” said Beatrice, “what the pleasure can be of the field of slaughter there.”

“Something mysterious, you may be sure, young ladies,” said grandpapa.  “I have hunted rats once or twice a year now these seventy years or more, and I can’t say I am tired yet.  And there is Master Fred going at it, for the first time in his life, as fiercely as any of us old veterans, and he has a very good eye for a hit, I can tell you, if it is any satisfaction to you.  Ha! hoigh Vixen! hoigh Carey! that’s it—­ there he goes!”

“Now, grandpapa,” said Beatrice, catching hold of his hand, “I want just to speak to you.  Don’t you think we might have a little charade-acting on Monday to enliven the evening a little?”