"Not yet, sir, I hope; not yet for a long time," said George Hawker, in
an offhand sort of way. But Mary slipped round, kissed his forehead,
and took his hand quietly in hers.

John looked from her to George, and dropped her hand with a sigh, and
soon the lovers were whispering together again in the darkness of the
window.

But now there is a fresh footfall on the garden walk, a quick, rapid,
decided one. Somebody burst open the hall-door, and, without shutting
it, dashes into the parlour, accompanied by a tornado of damp air, and
announces in a loud though not unpleasant voice, with a foreign accent--

"I have got the new Scolopax."

He was a broad, massive built man, about the middle height, with a
square determined set of features, brightened up by a pair of merry
blue eyes. His forehead was, I think, the finest I ever saw; so high,
so broad, and so upright; and, altogether, he was the sort of man that
in a city one would turn round and look after, wondering who he was.

He stood in the doorway, dripping, and without "Good-even," or
salutation of any sort, exclaimed--

"I have got the new Scolopax!"

"No!" cried old John, starting up all alive, "Have you though? How did
you get him? Are you sure it is not a young Jack? Come in and tell us
all about it. Only think."

"The obstinacy and incredulity of you English," replied the new comer,
totally disregarding John's exclamations, and remaining dripping in the
doorway, "far exceeds anything I could have conceived, if I had not
witnessed it. If I told you once, I told you twenty times, that I had
seen the bird on three distinct occasions in the meadow below Reel's
mill; and you each time threw your jacksnipe theory in my face. To-day
I marked him down in the bare ground outside Haveldon wood, then ran at
full speed up to the jager, and offered him five shillings if he would
come down and shoot the bird I showed him. He came, killed the bird in
a style that I would give a year's tobacco to be master of, and
remarked as I paid him his money, that he would like to get five
shillings for every one of those birds he could shoot in summer time.
The jolter-head thought it was a sandpiper, but he wasn't much further
out than you with your jacksnipes. Bah!"

"My dear Doctor Mulhaus," said John mildly, "I confess myself to have
been foolishly incredulous, as to our little place being honoured by
such a distinguished stranger as the new snipe. But come in to the
fire, an