To miss his customary pipe as he trotted leisurely home after the day's hunting was unthinkable.

"Matches! I've no matches! Here, Morton"-- to the butler who was standing by with Roger's hunting-crop in his hand.

"Got any matches ?" Morton produced a box at once.

He had been in Roger's service from boyhood, fought side by side with him in Flanders, and no demand of his master's had yet found him unprepared.

Nan was wont to declare that had Roger requested the Crown jewels, Morton would have immediately produced them from his pocket.
Outside, a groom was patiently walking a couple of horses up and down.
Quivering, velvety nostrils snuffed the keen air while gleaming black hoofs danced gently on the gravel drive, executing little side steps of excitement--for no hunting day comes round but that in some mysterious way the unerring instinct of the four-legged hunter acquaints him of the fact.