“He wasn’t easy, if you wanted anything done,” one man said, “not in his last years. I’ve got a brother in Stubbington. They got the Colonel just after the War to be like what they call the Chairman or Treasurer for Stubbington War Memorial; and they’ve never been able to agree what sort of a memorial to have; and they haven’t got one yet. The money’s lying in the bank, and will be, till the next War, like as not.” He thought a moment, and then went on. “He was all for having a cricket-field, the Colonel was; and most of the others wanted a swimming-pool or a stone and that; but the Colonel said: ‘Waterloo was won on the cricket-fields, not in any swimming-pool or stonemason’s yard.’”
Frampton left them after this; it was time to be off. He left the inn, reflecting on the names Pob Ted and Brass-Eyed Sarah.
“That will be Sarah Drachm, of Poids House,” he thought. “And if any dame earned her nickname, she has earned hers: brass in eye and heart and brow, in hair and nail and tooth; a real brass-bounder. Pob Ted is the long lout who was in the covert the other day, perhaps.”
As he reached home, the young American drove up. He was flicked about with mud, but rosy and happy, with shining eyes. It did Frampton good to see a man enjoying so keenly.
“Did you enjoy your hunt?” Frampton asked.
“Enjoy it? Gee, I should smile,” the youth said. “I got over a sort of bridge, and there were the hounds right in front of me. I never had such a kick out of anything. After about another three miles, I came on the lot of them dancing round a bit of a rabbit on a string. Then somebody asked, wouldn’t I like to be riding. I could get a horse at a sort of a big inn, there. So I went to the inn and got a horse. I’d no sooner gotten him, than the hounds were off on a fox, they said, and I went with them. I guess I must have been pretty close to him, but I couldn’t see him.”
“They stopped the hunt because a man was killed, I understand,” Frampton said.
“Is that so? I stopped, because my horse wouldn’t go any farther, and I’ve got to make Chester, to see this guy about this deal. Gee, if I put the deal through I’m going to cable my pop, I’m going to stop over and do some hunting. Say, what do you fellows do to a fox when you get him?”
“They get him from the hounds and smear some of his blood on a new-comer’s face. Then they cut off his head, or mask, as you have to call it, and his tail, which they call his brush, and his feet, which they call his pads; these they treasure as relics. Then they yell, to excite the hounds, and when the hounds are excited, they chuck the rest of him to them, for them to eat. They wouldn’t eat unless half crazy; a fox is a stinking meat.”
The American pondered this; then said that he guessed, if he might be excused, he would be getting a move on. He had had a great time and enjoyed every minute of it; but from what someone had said, he judged he was somewheres of a long way from Chester, and didn’t want to be too late in getting there.” He listened to Frampton’s directions, and read through a written route which Frampton put into his hand. “I guess I’ll make it,” he said.
Frampton had no doubt that he would make the North Pole, in case of need.
When he was alone, Frampton had leisure to think of the day. It had been a savage day to him, and he meant to make it rough for those who had made it so. Going through the hall, he found cards on the table from Mr. Practice Method-Methodde, M.P. and wife. Helga told him that a chauffeur had brought them all the way from the road.
“Practice Method-Methodde,” he repeated. “That’s the Member for this constituency.” He was indignant with him. Why had he not come himself to the door, if this were a call? “I suppose,” he muttered to himself, “you were out at the meet or watching the hounds, and thought you could just send your man up, as I should certainly be away; and then you could say that you had called.”
He determined that he would not return the call.
The cards were yet another fillip to his rage, as he sat to write to the Hunt Secretary. What sort of England had he come into? he wondered. He sat at his study table and wrote to Sir Peter, to say that he was surprised that the hounds had been permitted to enter Spirr after his wish that they should keep out of it. He added that he had meant what he said, that Spirr was to be a Bird Sanctuary, and that he was determined to keep the hounds out in future. In addition to the trespass into the closed covert of Spirr, people had broken open, and then unhinged, a securely fastened gate, so that the trespass of the whole gathering might be easy. If there were any explanation, he said that he would be glad to hear it. He sent this letter down to Coombe by his driver that evening, thinking that an answer would come by hand that night. It did not come. He went to bed fuming with rage, but was a little appeased by the thought that a note would reach him at breakfast-time.
It did not come. In his anger, he telephoned to Coombe House, asking for Sir Peter. He was answered by the angry ham, that Sir Peter had gone, two nights before, to London, and would be there for three nights more. Sir Peter, therefore, was out of the plot; he had not been there with the hounds; and in his absence the plotters, whoever they were, had had an easy time. He was glad that Sir Peter had not been present; nothing of the kind would have happened if he had been. But he reflected that Annual-Tilter had been in command there; he was the man responsible.
“I’ll rub the Tilter’s nose in the mud for this,” he vowed. “If a Master cannot keep his field in order, he’d better be shown up,” he growled.
He turned to his breakfast-table, where his letters waited for him. At the top of the pile was one in an unknown lady’s hand, postmarked Stubbington; he opened this, and read:
Dear Mr. Mansell,
My husband was so sorry to find you out, when he called yesterday.
(“He’d have been a damn sight sorrier to find me in,” Frampton growled.)
He was so anxious to interest you in a scheme he has for reviving the water-carrying industries of these parts.
It will be such a pleasure to us to see you here at lunch, when the House rises. At present we are such birds of passage.
(“Now we come to the main point,” he growled.)
We wonder whether you could be so very kind as to find something in your wonderful Works for our boy, Prentice, who, since he left the University has found it so difficult to find anything to do. He is here at present, and would be so glad of a chance to show what is in him, but post-war England is so difficult, is it not? Will you, please, think of him if you have anything?
Yours sincerely,
“Willie Method-Methodde,” Frampton repeated, “sweet little Wilhelmina-pina Mrs. Methody Pethody. Something in my wonderful Works for a lad who finds it so difficult to find anything to do, who wants so to show what is in him until the water-carrying industry’s revived. What the devil does she mean by the water-carrying industry? Does she mean bringing the water-carts to the Tatchester slums? Or men going round, as they did in old London, selling buckets of water at the doors?” He remembered then a speech in the House about the restoration of canals. Probably that was what she meant. The wonderful Works were to house the fledgeling till he could get a whole time job as a bargee. He liked her assumption, that the Works would be the place for her son. Not a word of capacity, or interest, or keenness, or knowledge of guns or explosives; just the fact that he had been at the University and found it difficult to get anything. Well, she would find it jolly difficult to get anything out of him, if that was the way she went about it.