“But where is the fun, will you tell me? Is it fun to insult a man? Is it fun to spoil his property? Is it fun to break the laws?”
Brass-Eyed Sarah said that if a man had no sense of humour it was useless arguing.
Poor Bill and Joe gave evidence that they had undertaken to support the rag, and that they were very sorry. Annual-Tilter said that he had been misled by the statements of the three young people, that the ban on Spirr had been removed. He said that the Hunt Secretary had given a very full apology and sincere expression of regret, which he thought would have been ample. He was new to the country, and was sorry to have begun his Mastership on an estate where fox-hunters were not welcome. As to the trespass, he had always understood that hounds might follow a fox anywhere, a fox being vermin, and his death a benefit to the community.
The magistrates conferred among themselves in low tones. As the matter seemed to them to be important, they withdrew, so that they might debate it in their room. While they were away, the friends of the Bright Young Things rallied round their cronies. Frampton heard Pob told that he was “marvous, absooty marvous.”
Presently the Magistrates returned. Through their spokesman, they spoke first to Annual-Tilter. They told him that he had been misled by the statements of the others. The Hunt had trespassed, and the Hunt servants were much to blame; a certain amount of damage had been done by the Hunt, which they assessed at 7/6d.; this the Hunt should pay to Mr. Mansell. As to the Hunt servants, they had now realised how very foolish their share in the prank had been. There was a very serious offence, known as the taking of secret commissions. They understood that the Hunt authorities had spoken very earnestly to them; they would, therefore, say no more, feeling quite sure that the offence would never be repeated.
The Chairman now turned to the three main offenders. He was a ponderous old man, no hunter, but a keen fisherman, who thought that Frampton ought to be hunted out of the county for bringing the case at all. He now began his main speech.
“You have heard it claimed that hounds may follow a fox anywhere, a fox being vermin. Let me assure you all that that is not so. Trespass, wilful and malicious damage are offences. You all admit that you have been guilty of these offences. You must all see that you have acted most improperly. You have misled a lot of other people into acting improperly. You have said that you did all this for a joke, or, as you put it, a rag. A great deal of folly and even criminality is done in the name of ragging. Your ragging has been a violation of the law, for which you would be the first to expect a poor person to be sent to prison. You must pay Mr. Mansell compensation, amounting in all to one pound, for the chain, the wire and the padlock, broken from the gate, for the rehanging of the gate and the restoration of the notice-boards. I think that the best course you can pursue is to apologise to Mr. Mansell for the trouble and annoyance you have caused, not only to him, but to everybody here to-day.”
The three culprits were not abashed by the Chairman’s homily. Frampton heard Pinkie say that the old putt was priceless. There was a general stir in Court, as a lot of the sporting set made for the door. The man, the Kowzer, who was a well-known dare-devil, who had done desperate deeds in the War, at once moved round to the door to block their going. He held out his hat to the members of the Hunt.
“Silver collection,” he said, “on behalf of the victims. It’s your money I want. Silver for the Spirr Wood Martyrs.”
There was laughter at this; the policemen at the door looked a little askance, but the Kowzer was a privileged man; and the hat had thirty shillings in it in half a minute. With this money he paid the two mulcts to Frampton’s lawyer. The Court was in much turmoil, with the people going out and unrestrained chatter. The Bench talked among themselves, waiting till the crowd had gone before taking the next case, Frampton saw the three culprits receiving congratulations from their friends; they did not look as though they would apologise to anybody.
“Why the devil should they apologise?” he said to himself. “Damn it,” he thought, “I wouldn’t apologise. But I’ve had them up and cleared the score; I’ll give them a chance to shake hands.”
He judged that he ran a good chance of a rebuff, but took the chance. Very Christianly, but unwisely, he went up to Pob and said:
“I hope that now the score is cleared, we may shake hands.”
The people round the three fell away, with wonder on their faces at the bounder and his rudeness; the pieman’s son asking to shake hands with the Member’s son, just after he’d dragged him through the Court. Pob was not very quick and did not gather for an instant what was happening.
“What’s this?” he said. “Kowzer’s paid your man the fine. I’m not going to pay you.”
“I’m only offering to shake hands,” Frampton said.
“That’s a little bit too thick, what,” Pob said. “Not when you can’t take a rag.”
Frampton withdrew his hand and glanced at Brass-Eyed Sarah, a very properly named woman, for she seemed both barren and brassy. Pinkie, under her breath, said:
“My God, the Early Christian stunt.”
He regretted his impulse.
“Just as you please, of course,” he said, and walked out, hearing Sarah’s comment:
“That bounder’s got a pretty good cheek.”
The next case was called before he left the Court; as it was a bastardy case, the three Martyrs remained to hear it. Frampton went out into the street, where some of the tougher members of the Hunt were waiting for him; they viewed him away with cries of “Hot pies; hot pies; all hot,” in delicate allusion to his father’s boyhood in Stanchester. The Kowzer came up, bearing half a crown conspicuously between forefinger and thumb.
“Mr. Mansell, of Mullples?” he asked. Frampton looked him in the eye, expecting trouble here. “I’ve brought you this half-crown,” the Kowzer said. “A little tribute from the Hunt, who ask you to buy a leather medal with it.”
It came instantly into Frampton’s mind that he had seen this fellow, or half seen him, with the barmaid at the Stag’s Death in Tuncester only two nights before. It came like a flash, with the certainty of inspiration.
“When you’ve bought it,” the Kowzer concluded, “please hang it on your rump and let us kick it for you.”
Frampton made no effort to take the money.
“Half a crown,” he said; “you ought to keep that. It’ll be the first instalment on your barmaid’s bastard at Tunster presently.”
This took the wind out of the Kowzer’s sails; it was a surprise; it knocked him flat. Frampton walked on through the hostile company. He would take good care, he promised himself, that no other hunt should run a drag through Spirr, nor come on to any ground of his. He took his car and drove home.
Though he meant to spend most of his time at Multiples until Christmas, it was not a home to him; it was a place of unrest, bitterness and disappointment. Margaret, who had become the symbol of all that he was lacking, was gone from it.
“Nature has put a curse on this Waste,” he growled, “and everybody says that monkish land has cursed everybody who has held it since the monks were flung out. Now the curse hangs on me, the double curse. Once I used to be happy in my work. I enjoyed making guns and things. Why should I go on making them? I’ve no one to make for now, no son to hope for and no soul to try to please. I don’t even want to make a gun so deadly that man will be able to destroy himself off the planet. I’ve come to an end.”
For some weeks after Margaret’s death, he had dreaded and loathed motor-driving. Those feelings faded, while he was in the Far West. Now that he was at Mullples, he found that driving late at night, or in the early mornings, was soothing to him. He had to watch his road and think of what he was doing, and had, as he put it, the damn world to himself. While going through the swift, dark night, with his lights on the sickle of the road in front, and his eyes on the swerve of the road, he could forget his frustrations and the bitterness of his home-coming.