'It's pretty constant, Mrs Askerton. Then I shoot, and hunt.'

'You're a sportsman?'

'All men living in the country are more or less.'

'Colonel Askerton shoots a great deal. He has the shooting of Belton,
you know. He'll be delighted, I'm sure, to see you if you are here some
time in September. But you, coming from Norfolk, would not care for
partridge-shooting in Somersetshire.'

'I don't see why it shouldn't be as good here as there.'

'Colonel Askerton thinks he has got a fair head of game upon the place.'

'I dare say. Game is easily kept if people knew how to set about it.'

'Colonel Askerton has a very good keeper, and has gone to a great deal
of expense since he has been here.'

'I'm my own head-keeper,' said Belton;' and so I will be or rather
should be, if I had this place.'

Something in the lady's tone had grated against his feelings and
offended him; or perhaps he thought that she assumed too many of the
airs of proprietorship because the shooting of the place had been let
to her husband for thirty pounds a year.

'I hope you don't mean to say you'll turn us out,' said Mrs Askerton,
laughing.