who had never played since that circus night played now in passionate
earnest. He proved a good shot, and, for all his inexperience, an
indomitable and clever hunter. His close-confined physical energy could
not shake itself. He liked the long and dogged pursuit, the cruel, often
fruitless struggle up the mountain-sides, the patient waiting, the
triumph of that final shot from a hand unshaken by excitement or fatigue.
A stag showing itself for an instant against the sky-line called up all
the stubborn purpose in him; then he would not turn back until either his
quarry had fallen to him, or night had swallowed them both.

And Cosgrave, half forgotten, tagged docilely at his heels, or lay in the
wet heather on the crest of a hill overlooking the world, and watched and
waited with strange, wide-open eyes. But he never gave the signal. He
shot nothing. His failure seemed to amuse and even please him. A faint,
excited colour came into his cheeks, lashed up by the wind and rain. And
once, a hare running out from under his feet, he gave a wild "halloo!"
like a boy and set off in pursuit, headlong down the stony hillside, his
gun at full cock, threatening indiscriminate destruction.

"You might have killed yourself," Robert said angrily. But Cosgrave
laughed, his eyes narrowed to blue-grey slits as though he did not want
Stonehouse to see all that was in them.

"I shouldn't have minded," he panted, "going off on the crest like
that--I wanted to run--I forgot."

"Well, for the Lord's sake, don't forget."

But for an instant at least he knew what Cosgrave meant. It had been the
sight of that downward rushing hill and the sudden choking exultation.