“I know all that is said for it,” Frampton said. “I wonder if by any chance you know of any young man about here known as Pob Ted?”
“Young Prentice Methodde, the Member’s son, is known as Pob Ted. He’s a waster, who roams from field to field here. His father got me to give him a job in the office, saying that it would be such a good introduction to politics for him. He’s no good. He couldn’t do any one thing that we put him to here, and didn’t try to. So we sacked him at the end of a week. You keep clear of him. Willie M-M, the mother, will be on to you, probably, to give him a job in your factory. Well, don’t.”
“Pob Ted,” Frampton said. “What does Pob mean?”
“It sort of describes the chap,” Harold said. “He is what you would call a Pob. I mean, it leaps to the eye, that. He is a pobby sort of a chap. If he were dobby, you could trust him; if he were knobby, you could have him operated on; if he were sobby, you could have him psycho-analysed; but as he’s only pobby, he’s a very bad jobby.”
They had a pleasant afternoon together, looking at works of art, and discussing favourite painters. Frampton’s Tenor Cobbs were looking their best. It was the happiest time Frampton had yet had at Mullples. When Harold had gone, he felt again his anger against the Hunt. There was no letter of apology from the Secretary, nor had there been a call of apology from the Master. This he thought the limit of rudeness. There would have been time for his letter to reach Bynd, who ought by this to have telegraphed an apology.
“And I’m to give the layer of the drag a job in my Works, am I?” he growled.
He went to his den and wrote to his Member’s wife, that he made it a rule never to give employment save to someone who could prove that he had aptitude. If her son could show this quality, why, then, the path lay open. As he expected, the letter was not answered.
There came no apology from Annual-Tilter.
Something recalled the Inspector’s words that the policeman had been unable to see the notices of PRIVATE in and near Spirr Wood. He went down to see about this. He had not noticed the point before, but it was plain now: all the notices had been pulled down before the Hunt’s visit. The boards marked PRIVATE had been sawn from their posts; the posts were left prone, but the notices had gone. He went on to Timothy, who showed that he knew nothing about the Hunt’s coming; he had been out of the Wood when the Hunt came. He knew nothing about the removal of the notice-boards. He was at work drawing a dead wood pigeon which he had picked up that morning. Frampton was pleased to see him really at work again. Frampton told him that he was summonsing the Hunt, and that it was a pity, that he, Timothy, had chosen the hunting morning, of all mornings, to go off on the binge.
“You don’t do the firm much good, you know,” he said, “going off like that. The chaps took down the notices right under your nose. No wonder these sportsmen think the bird sanctuary is a joke. Well, it isn’t a joke; I mean it to be the real thing; and these morning drams are no good to you. They’ll do you down. If you’d spent your evening well you’d not want any morning dram. Now you’ll pull up your leggings and get your evidence ready, about the damage these devils have done. Come on, now, and see with your own eyes.”
A little work with plaster showed that the three who had laid the drag had removed the notice-boards. He sent word to the police about this.
“You can get busy on that, too,” he said. “I’ll summons the three for wilful damage.”
It was not long before Sir Peter Bynd came to Mullples to apologise. He seemed much aged and broken since they had met at lunch.
“You know, Mr. Mansell,” he said, “I am much grieved at the Hunt’s trespass in your covert the other day. I was in London, unfortunately. The Hunt is full of apology, but I need hardly say that the whole thing was not in any way the action of the Hunt, but a prank of some of the young people. It was a mistake to meet at Tibb’s Cross, when you had closed Spirr. I ought to have seen that; but the wishes of the rest were too strong for me. There are two or three young people who come down here, who aren’t very wise. It may be best not to mention names. But I am sorry to say they opened your gate and persuaded everybody that you had relented at the last minute and wished the Hunt to draw Spirr. They told the Huntsman this; he’s a very good, simple fellow; and he believed them. They told the Whipper-in, that there was to be a drag, and that he was to halloo hounds away. He ought to have known better, but, of course, now that the harm’s done, he’s very contrite. For the rest of the field, of course, they believed what they wanted to believe, that you had opened Spirr again. Of course, all the best of them are very sorry. I think it was the greatest of pities that I was not there. A very old friend of mine was ill in London then; in fact, he died that morning. I was with him for his last few days of course, and have only now returned. Unfortunately, with myself not there and a new Master in charge, these young people had it their own way. But on behalf of the Hunt, I apologise sincerely, and hope that the matter may be forgiven and forgotten.”
He looked so wretched and spoke with so much charm, that Frampton would have been indeed stony-hearted had he felt no sympathy. But he was not a forgiving man. Suddenly there came into his mind the image of Annual-Tilter, the acting Master. Why the devil had not Tilter come to apologise? Tilter had been at the meet, though Bynd had been in London; Tilter, the fierce fool, who had blocked the Mansell Gun through a year of war.
“Sir Peter,” he said, “no one could hear you speak without being won to your side. I realise that if you had been there the trespass would never have been made. You were not in any way responsible. I was very angry at the trespass, and am angry still, that those who were responsible should not have apologised. It was meant as an insult, not as a prank, and every day without apology makes the insult worse. If these had been the days of duels, I’d have had your Tilter out and put a bullet through him.”
This was not the kind of talk to which Sir Peter was accustomed; he was astonished at Frampton’s tone.
“I’m sorry that you should be vexed with Annual-Tilter,” he said. “He was as much misled by these practical jokers as anybody there. I feel sure, that when he understands how you feel about it, he will be the first to come to make amends.”
“He should have been the first,” Frampton said. “He should in all things have been the first. As it is, he is the last, as always.” He was thinking more of the Mansell Gun than of Spirr Wood at the moment. “However,” Frampton said, “the matter’s out of my hands now. It is too late for him to apologise. The Stubbington police will, by this time, have summoned him. That may teach him that I’m in earnest about Spirr.”
Sir Peter came away soon after this, wondering whether his wife were not altogether right about the tenant of Mullples. He did not tell her all that Frampton had said, but told her that he was angry, as she would have been, if a trespass of the sort had been made at Coombe. She said, that at Coombe people were not spoil-sports and knew how to take jokes. Sir Peter thought that perhaps they knew only how to take the jokes of their kind, and that often what seemed a joke to one class might be taken as a deadly insult and avenged as such, perhaps years afterwards, by another. He knew that Frampton had had a shattering loss not many months before; and he knew, too, how cruelly and easily a vanity may be injured, and how it will brood and brood and anon flame out appallingly.