The admiral looked annoyed and there was an awkward silence.
‘Well, then,’ said General Murgatroyd, ‘that’s all settled. Those who are coming out in the morning must be in the hall, suitably dressed, by ten. We shan’t wait. I advise you to bring shooting-sticks.’
‘What are they?’ asked Albert, but his question was drowned by the overture from William Tell which suddenly burst upon the room.
The next day Jane came downstairs punctually at ten o’clock. Albert and Sally had apparently both found themselves unable to get up so early and had sent messages to say that they would join the guns for lunch. One of the footmen was just taking a glass of champagne to Albert’s room. Jane wished that she had known this sooner; she had found it a great effort to wake up that morning herself, and was still very sleepy. She half contemplated going back to bed until luncheon time, but catching at that moment the eye of the admiral, and feeling by no means certain that it was his glass one, she lacked the moral courage to do so.
In the hall scenes of horrible confusion were going forward; a perfect regiment of men tramped to and fro carrying things and bumping into each other. They all seemed furiously angry. Above the din could be heard the general’s voice:
‘What the — d’you think you’re doing? Get out of that! Come here, blast you!’
Lady Prague, looking like a sort of boy scout, was struggling with a strap when she caught sight of Jane.
‘My dear girl,’ she said taking one end of it from between her teeth, ‘you can’t come out in that mackintosh. Whoever heard of black on the hill? Why, it’s no good at all. That scarlet cap will have to go too, I’m afraid. It’s easy to see you haven’t been up here before. We must alter all this.’ She dived into a cupboard, and after some rummaging produced a filthy old Burberry and forced Jane to put it on. Evidently made for some portly man it hung in great folds on Jane and came nearly to her ankles.
‘I don’t think I’ll take a mackintosh at all,’ she said, rather peevishly, ‘and I hardly ever wear a hat in any case, so I’ll leave that behind, too.’
‘As you like, my dear, of course. I think you’ll be perished with cold and it will probably rain; it looks to me quite threatening. Have your own way, but don’t blame me if – Hullo! we seem to be off at last.’
Jane climbed rather miserably into a sort of ’bus and sat next Lady Prague. She was disappointed that Albert had not come, having taken particular pains with her appearance that morning on his account.
The moor was about five miles away, and during the whole drive nobody spoke a word except General Murgatroyd, who continually admonished his dog, a broken-looking retriever of the name of Mons.
‘Lie down, will you? No, get off that coat!’ (Kick, kick, kick; howl, howl, howl.) ‘Stop that noise, blast you!’ (Kick, howl.)
Jane pitied the poor animal which seemed unable to do right in the eyes of its master.
When they arrived at their destination (a sort of sheep-track on the moor) they were met by two more guns who had come over from a neighbouring house to make up the numbers; and by a rabble of half-clothed and villainous-looking peasants armed for the most part with sticks. They reminded Jane of a film she had once seen called ‘The Fourteenth of July’.
Their leader, an enormous man with red hair and wild eyes, came forward and addressed General Murgatroyd in a respectful, but independent manner. When they had held a short parley he withdrew, and communicated the result of it to his followers, after which they all straggled away.
Jane supposed that they were the local unemployed, soliciting alms, and felt that the general must have treated them with some tact; once aroused, she thought, they might prove ugly customers.
Presently the whole party began to walk across the moor. Jane noticed that each of the men had an attendant who carried guns and a bag of cartridges. She wondered what their mission could be: perhaps to stand by and put the wounded birds out of their pain.
After an exhausting walk of about half an hour, during which Jane fell down several times (and the general said it would be easy walking, old humbug!), they arrived at a row of little roofless buildings, rather like native huts. The first one they came to was immediately, and silently, appropriated by Lord and Lady Prague, followed by their attendant.
Jane supposed that they were allocated in order of rank and wondered which would fall to her lot.
‘Better come with me, Miss Dacre,’ said General Murgatroyd. It was the first time he had spoken except to swear at his dog, which he did continually, breaking the monotony by thrashing the poor brute, whose shrieks could be heard for miles across the heather.
When they reached his hut (or butt) he shouted in a voice of thunder:
‘Get in, will you, and lie down.’
Jane, though rather taken aback, was about to comply when a kick from its master sent poor Mons flying into the butt, and she realized that the words had been addressed to that unfortunate and not to herself.
General Murgatroyd gave Jane his cartridge bag to sit on and paid no further attention to her. He and his attendant (the correct word for whom appeared to be loader) stood gazing over the top of the butt into space.
Seated on the floor, Jane could see nothing outside except a small piece of sky; she wondered why she had been made to leave her black mackintosh behind.
‘I can neither see nor be seen. I expect it was that old woman’s jealous spite. I don’t believe she’s a woman at all. She’s just a very battered boy scout in disguise, and not much disguise, either.’
She began to suffer acutely from cold and cramp, and was filled with
