[For a moment, Lyall attempts to parse that, but in the end, he merely looks somewhere between amused and perplexed, and suggests,]

Perhaps when you are safely back in town, you can explain that to me. I imagine you are either speaking of something your Oxford has that mine never did come up with, or else it is something not yet discovered in my time.

[Because he is quite interested. Even if he has been a tad too busy to interest himself in the local herds.]