The Ayrshire grouse-shooting is not the best in
Scotland; but there is grouse-shooting in Ayrshire; and the shooting on
the Portray mountains is not the worst shooting in the county. The castle
at Portray overhangs the sea, but there is a wild district attached to it
stretching far back inland, in regard to which Lizzie Eustace was very
proud of talking of "her shooting." Early in the spring of the present
year she had asked her cousin Frank to accept the shooting for the coming
season, and he had accepted it. "I shall probably be abroad," she said,
"but there is the old castle." She had offered it as though he had been
her brother, and he had said that he would go down for a couple of weeks--
not to the castle, but to a little lodge some miles up from the sea, of
which she told him when he declined the castle. When this invitation was
given there was no engagement between her and Lord Fawn. Since that date,
within the last day or two, she had reminded him of it.
"Won't his lordship be there?" he had said laughingly.
"Certainly not," she had answered with serious earnestness. Then she had
explained that her plan of going abroad had been set aside by
circumstances.
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