interests as her superstitious brother, so she mounted the gate
gracefully--she was always graceful. Bertram took her small hand
and jumped her down on the other side, while Philip, not liking to
show himself less bold than a woman in this matter, climbed over it
after her, though with no small misgivings. They strolled on into
the wood, picking the pretty white orchids by the way as they went,
for some little distance. The rich mould underfoot was thick with
sweet woodruff and trailing loosestrife. Every now and again, as
they stirred the lithe brambles that encroached upon the path, a
pheasant rose from the ground with a loud whir-r-r before them.
Philip felt most uneasy. "You'll have the keepers after you in a
minute," he said, with a deprecating shrug. "This is just full
nesting time. They're down upon anybody who disturbs the
pheasants."

"But the pheasants can't BELONG to any one," Bertram cried, with a
greatly amused face. "You may taboo the land--I understand that's
done--but surely you can't taboo a wild bird that can fly as it
likes from one piece of ground away into another."

Philip enlightened his ignorance by giving him off-hand a brief and
profoundly servile account of the English game-laws, interspersed
with sundry anecdotes of poachers and poaching. Bertram listened
with an interested but gravely disapproving face. "And do you mean
to say," he asked at last "they send men to prison as criminals for
catching or shooting hares and pheasants?"

"Why, certainly," Philip answered. "It's an offence against the
law, and also a crime against the rights of property."