“That do seem right to have a Squire Dominey at this corner,” he observed, watching a high cock pheasant come crashing down over their heads. “I mind when the Squire, your father, sir, gave up this corner one day to Lord Wendermere, whom folks called one of the finest pheasant shots in England, and though they streamed over his head like starlings, he'd nowt but a few cripples to show for his morning's work.”
“Come out with a bit of a twist from the left, don't they?” Dominey remarked, repeating his late exploit.
“They do that, sir,” the old man assented, “and no one but a Dominey seems to have learnt the knack of dealing with them proper. That foreign Prince, so they say, is well on to his birds, but I wouldn't trust him at this corner.”
The old man moved off a few paces to some higher ground, to watch the progress of the beaters through the wood. Seaman turned to his companion, and there was a note of genuine admiration in his tone.
“My friend,” he declared, “You are a miracle. You seem to have developed the Dominey touch even in killing pheasants.”
“You must remember that I have shot higher ones in Hungary,” was the easy reply.
“I am not a sportsman,” Seaman admitted. “I do not understand sport. But I do know this: there is an old man who has lived on this land since the day of his birth, who has watched you shoot, reverently, and finds even the way you hold your gun familiar.”
“That twist of the birds,” Dominey explained, “is simply a local superstition. The wood ends on the slant, and they seem to be flying more to the left than they really are.”
Seaman gazed steadfastly for a moment along the side of the wood.
“Her Grace is coming,” he said. “She seems to share the Duke's dislike of me, and she is too great a lady to conceal her feelings. Just one word before I go. The Princess Eiderstrom arrives this afternoon.”
Dominey frowned, then, warned by the keeper's shout, turned around and killed a hare.
“My friend,” he said, with a certain note of challenge in his tone, “I am not certain that you have told me all that you know concerning the Princess's visit.”
Seaman was thoughtful for a brief space of time.
“You are right,” he admitted, “I have not. It is a fault which I will repair presently.”