The Square Peg or The Gun Fella

She had been brought up to having her own way without much opposition. She had learned, in the England of her girlhood, to ride over those who were not in her set, nor of her way of thinking; she was determined to ride over Frampton.

“It must be very interesting to you,” she said, “to come here, so near to your father’s old home.”

“It is interesting to see a new bit of England,” he said, “and study the savage inhabitants, and the dear old ruins of the eighteenth century, pretending to be what they were. England is always interesting.”

She affected not to see his hand, so he put it in his pocket.

“I don’t know what guns you make,” she said; “they may be very fine or they may not. Opinions differ. But if I know anything of the youth of these parts, your absurd scheme of a bird sanctuary will not prosper very far. And I must say, I hope it won’t. And if you try your plan of jerry-building, I’ll see what the Ministries can do.”

“It’s always a fresh surprise, isn’t it?” he said, “what the Ministries will do. One of them’s rather keen on having a machine-gun range and school just up above here. I tell them it’s just the place. I do hope they’ll establish it. I could try my new quick-firer at my own door, so to speak.” Seeing that he had touched her to the quick, he went on. “I’ve grown to loathe the quiet and the dry rot up on the Waste,” he said. “Haven’t you? Don’t you long to train quick-firers on Stubbington Wood, to blast some of those old sick trees away?”

Lady Bynd had never learned to spit and did not now attempt it; she drew herself up, looking liker an angry ham than before. Frampton heard the remark “insufferable” as he went through the door. Sir Peter followed him out to the car to see him away. Frampton wanted to be nice to Sir Peter, who had been very nice to him.

“If you’d like to bring your Boy Scouts out to Mullples at any time,” he said, “I’ll fix up a water picnic for them, with coracles, and a punt or two, and, of course, I’ll have a bathing-place for them.”

He drove away, then, thinking that he had done for himself in that house, and a jolly good job.

Lady Bynd presently put on a fur coat and was driven to her friend, Mrs. Method-Methodde at Stubbington Manor. There Mrs. Method-Methodde gave her tea and listened to her woes.

“What do you think of Mullples? My dear, isn’t it too ghastly? There is this dreadful gun-man, for I can call him nothing else, taking Spirr Wood from us out of sheer spite, and saying he’s going to make it a bird sanctuary. He only does it out of spite. We’ve met him; he lunched with us to-day. I shall never feel clean again. My dear, he is too awful. He speaks of building two hundred red brick villas and cinemas just above Spirr, so as to absolutely ruin our view. Pit was an angel to him; you know how charming he can be. I was for horse-whipping him there and then. Pit pleaded with the brute for Spirr Wood. Any decent man or half decent man would have yielded to the way Pit put it; but this creature kept saying that he had very deep feelings involved. He would not tell us what they were; naturally not; he hadn’t got any; it was only a pretence. A minute later, he said he was going to put his Gun Works on the Waste. My dear, do you realise that that man’s grandfather was a baker at Condicote, who was in Tatchester prison for assaulting a judge? He was. And his father kept a meat-pie store in Stanchester. It is altogether too ghastly. And now that poor Charlie is laid out, unable to ride, our only hope is for continued frost to make us not mind it, for the hunting season is ruined as far as this side of the country is concerned. He is an odious-looking man, with a black, cynical eye, which I always call an evil eye. There he is at Mullples. I said how difficult it is to get servants. He said that he left all that to a housekeeper. Such insolence. Not much housekeeper in the Condicote ménage, I imagine. He said that he always kept his maids; that they had nice rooms and books and a wireless set, as well as a great deal of leave. Millie says he takes them to Brighton for the week-ends. Now, there he’ll be. Absolutely killing hunting on all our side of the country.”

A young man who went by the name of Pob roused from his seat on the sofa as the lady finished her tirade. He was a leader of the B.Y.T. Club, the Bright Young Things Club, which functioned mainly in London, but had ramifications into that part of the country. He was the son of Mrs. Method-Methodde and the idol (and anxiety) of her heart.

“The chaps seems a bit of a bounder, I must say,” he said. “A bit of one.”

“I wish you’d seen him; I wish you’d heard him,” the lady answered.

“I suppose he’s made a good deal of tin,” Pob said. “These gun chaps and armament fellows, they do pretty well, what? I mean to say, they make a lot. Lots of tin in that job. He must be devilish well off.”

“Of course he has a lot of money. All these War profiteers have; nobody denies that. He makes you realise what is meant by the old phrase ‘Stinks of money.’ He has this offensive leer out of his eyes. And he looks at the pictures exactly as if he’d been a pawnbroker’s assistant, or valuer. He had the insolence to say that our Sir Joshua Reynolds was only by one of the school of. And the maid was in the room, and you know we want to sell it, if we can find some rich American. It will get about that it is not genuine, and everybody has always called it a Joshua Reynolds.”

Pob lit a cigarette.

“By Jove,” he said, “he seems a bit of a bounder. Is it true he’s not going to let us draw Spirr?”

“It’s absolutely true. For the first time for a hundred and fifty years. Even in the War years, some of us went through Spirr, just to keep the tradition alive.”

“By Jove,” Pob said.

“Just as he left,” the lady added, “he said he hoped Pit would bring the Boy Scouts out to his pond for a water picnic. Imagine those boys coming under such an influence. But with gun-works on the Waste and two hundred Tatchester unemployed in villas along the hill, Pit might just as well disband the troop.”

“As to the gun-works,” she went on, “I’ll speak to Ponk about it. He’ll get it taken up in the Press. Perhaps Pink might ask a question in the House. But certainly Ponk could do something about the red brick villas.”

Ponk was the owner of a group of newspapers in those parts; Pink was Mr. Methodde; all the friends of these people went by nicknames, most of them beginning with the letter P.

“I shouldn’t think many people near here will call on this gunman,” Lady Bynd said. “My dear, his manners are too odious. I feel in need of ammonia.”

She spread the news, and her views, of the gunman by letter, in person and on the telephone. On the Friday, Frampton drove to Tatchester Station to meet his father, who was coming from London for the week-end. The London Express, which reached Tatchester at 4 p.m., was always full of people from that countryside; the station approach was always thronged with cars sent to fetch them, and the platform populous with those who came to meet and to greet them. When Frampton came to the crowded platform, to meet the train, he saw at once that he was recognised, and with dislike. Press photographs and caricatures had made his face familiar to some millions of his countrymen. These people, who read little but illustrated newspapers, all recognised him. He realised that he was amidst the sporting set, and those hard mouths and angry eyes were set in rage at the bounder who had closed Spirr. There was no doubt, he was being stared at, with bitter comment. He knew the kind of comment, that this was the gunman who had done up Mullples and was going to shoot any fox or hound that ever entered Spirr; this was he who insulted Lady Bynd and meant to build red brick villas all over Mullples Hill; who had atheists to paint nudes all over his walls and took his housemaids to Brighton for the week-end.

“Yes, I’m the chap,” he muttered. “Take a good look, my hard-eyed duds.”

Among them he noticed a tall young man whose eyes and hat were somehow tilted at different angles; he was with a very fair, tall girl, who was smoking a cigarette in a holder. They looked a fairly tough couple, he thought; he judged that they either were, or were dressed to resemble, a bad film star and her lizard. They were Pob and his girl friend, known as Brass-Eyed Sarah. He was close to them. Brass-Eyed Sarah, in a very brazen voice, said:

“That’s the bounder who’s going to close Spirr.”

She was one of the brightest of the Bright Young Things. The train came in at that moment. While waiting to pilot his old father through the doors of the station, he heard himself pointed out and commented on by several others. Some of the remarks by the women were meant for him to hear; he heard them. He hardened his heart exceedingly.

In the next week or two, it became clear to him that he was not to find many friends in that countryside. He was away for the greater part of each week, devising his new gun. In his absence, between Monday and Friday night, a few men, knowing that he would be away, left cards upon him. He returned these calls, but found that by some coincidence the people were never at home when he returned the calls; the acquaintance was not made. He did not much wish to make the acquaintance, but marvelled a little at the people troubling to leave cards, if they meant the acquaintance not to be made.

“But,” he thought, “it is a thing they do, and feel bound to do. They will say: ‘Of course, I left cards on the bounder, when he came to these parts; one has to do that, of course; but I took good care not to be in when he came here; a fearful feller like that.’”

After two weeks, he was surprised to find that his chance remarks about the villas at Coombe House had been taken seriously. There were two letters in the Tatshire Times under the heading “Beauty Spot Threatened.” One letter, written in the office, so Frampton judged, said that they had heard with alarm that a new-comer to the district had plans of building red brick villas on the matchless slope of Mullples Hill; the second, by some female hand, presumably Lady Bynd, who had no doubt had Ponk to lunch, called on all loyal lovers of Britain to defend their birthright.

“Her birthright,” Frampton muttered. “The view from her Strawberry Hill Gothic windows. She’s related to the chap who owns this screed. I heard someone say. Well, I’ll lead her a dance over it.”

There was in Tatchester, an opposition paper to the Tatshire Times. The Tatshire Times was a good old weekly Church and State Tory paper, supporting the landed interest and all those commercial interests by which the landed interests keep going. It believed in “the strong hand” in India, Ireland and native questions generally; it felt and said that strikers in industrial disputes did not know which side their bread was buttered, even when it was plainly not buttered on either side. It had a good many subscribers, and was used by local tradesmen who advertised in it constantly. In the last two years, an opposition weekly paper known as “a rag,” or “a red rag,” by the supporters of the Tatshire Times, had been established in Tatchester. This was the Tatshire Change. It was run very ably in the Labour interest, and was making its way. It had already taken nearly a third of the subscribers and a fifth of the advertisements from the Tatshire Times, and many tradesmen, who had at first feared to advertise in it, lest they should lose custom, were beginning to pluck up heart and consider whether they should not make a change.

Frampton had no “Labour leanings,” as his neighbours supposed; he hated revolutionaries as much as he hated tories; his business was to make guns and sell them, in doing which Labour papers were as troublesome to him as Tory Colonels in high places. He disliked inefficiencies, found them in all ranks and was intolerant of them everywhere. The wandering Devil, who was never far from his elbow when there was a chance of gratifying one of his angers, now prompted him to rouse the troubled waters a little more.

“Since she believes in these red brick villas,” he thought, “we’ll see if we can’t make her squirm.”

Just at that moment the telephone rang; it was the Tatshire Change speaking, to ask if he had anything to say about his proposed scheme of building on the Mullples Hill.

He had a moment of much happiness. He asked, if anything had yet been written in the Tatshire Change. The editor replied:

“No, we have no information, beyond the letters in the Toast & Tea” (The local nickname for their rival.)

“Very well, then,” he answered. “I don’t want to talk over the telephone, for over a telephone a man’s words may be all misreported. I’m going to my Works now. If you care to come with me and see the Works, I’ll be glad to talk about it.”

This was too good a chance for the editor to miss. He came with Frampton to London, saw the Works, and heard his views. In a few days, just as the Tatshire Times was culling the flowers from the crop of correspondence about “the spoliation of Mullples beauty spot,” as they meant to call it, the Tatshire Change came out with a long article, and placarded it all over the city.

There was a run on the Tatshire Change; it sold three editions before midnight. The buyers read the following:

The interview was printed. It was a dead season, and the question of Mullples came happily to the Editor’s hand. Frampton had so planted his hooks that a gudgeon of sorts came on to each one. The next day, a party of Press photographers, a member of the Save England Society, and some twenty amateur photographers came out to Mullples in different cars and ways, and took many views. The fat was in the fire.

Unfortunately, the opposition pitted against him, the local landowners, were not clever with their pens; they did not write to the Press. Ponk saw to it that the Tatshire Times printed a leader on the question, in which “we” deplored the tendency to decentralisation, which was surely contrary to all economic experience. “We” did not doubt that Mr. Mansell had the good of the country much at heart, but were sure that they were voicing local sentiment when they said that Tatshire men had been accustomed to manage their own affairs, as well as to preserve unspoiled the beauty bequeathed to them by the piety of their forefathers.

This leader was followed up by a correspondence, some of it written in the office, signed Pro Bono Publico and Tatshire Man, the rest of it from Tatshire people, who wrote on both sides of the question much as follows:

The Tatshire Change printed the following letter, among others:

One of Ponk’s adherents replied to this as follows:

Altogether the Press comment was lively, and sometimes sufficiently foolish to be quoted in the London Press as specimens of what we can do in that way.

Many little things had shown Fram, by this time, that he was to be cut by the sportsmen in those parts, and that none but sportsmen dwelled there; his father had been wise in that, as in so many things.

“Never mind,” he thought, “I can make my presence here felt by the fox-hunters, and by Jove I will.”

The thought of the angry ham returned to him daily, to harden his heart. But mixed with his loathing for her was an agony of rage at the injustice, that Margaret had been taken and that thing left. That hurt him cruelly, and in his pain he longed to hurt others.

“Oh to have a machine-gun range on all the Waste, to kill the Hunt utterly, and put that damned ham’s neck out of joint. Oh, to have a factory and a model village, from here to Coombe, so that the Tatchester slums may be done for, and a new generation grow up in clean air.”

But he cared less for the new generation really than for the ground landlords, the game-preservers, with the empty slums on their hands, and forced, perhaps, to apply at his Works for jobs. That would be a sweet moment. Margaret’s death had killed the life of his heart; there was no joy there now, only bitterness and a longing to give bitterness.

A local saddler, hoping for his custom, sent him a fixture-card of the Hunt. He read:

“Meet at Tibb’s Cross, will they?” he commented. “Well, they’d better not try to get into Spirr Wood.”

He could not keep them from Tibb’s Cross, the crossing-point of the two lanes just beyond his property, but he was resolved to keep them from the field which led to Spirr. He, therefore, went down to examine the gate which led from his field into the lane at Tibb’s Cross. It was a new gate, put in by him. He chained and padlocked the gate. Later, feeling that he had not secured it sufficiently, he went down with some barbed wire and added the wire to the chain.

“That’ll keep ’em their own side of the fence,” he thought.

He looked at the fir-trees at the end of Spirr. As ever, they brought to him a poignant thought of Margaret.

“These fox-hunters want to draw your wood,” he said, “but I’ll keep ’em out, my dear. I think I’ve fixed ’em.”

This was on the Tuesday.

He would have gone to London that night, to be at the Works on the opening morning of the Hunt, but on his return to the house, he found a call from a ship at sea. A young American inventor whom he had met while in the States, was about to land at Southampton, and would much like to stop for a talk as he drove through to North Wales. He liked this young man, who had charm, a tireless energy, and a keen swift intelligence in all matters relating to guns and explosives.

“Certainly, I must see George,” he said. “He may enjoy seeing this place. He’ll be able to come here for the night.”

He, therefore, urged him to come to Mullples on landing, and gave him some directions about how to get there. He then telephoned through to the Works, to say that he wouldn’t be up till Thursday morning, and that if anything pressed for a decision, they could telephone.

George arrived late on Tuesday night, and after a midnight supper, went to bed. In the morning, the two breakfasted together and talked about a new idea. Frampton had liked the young man, and now liked him better. He was a fine fellow, with a mental habit of getting at essentials by short cuts. His race has this habit or power beyond all the races of the world. In appearance, he was a fine big fellow, handsome, active and with an air of command. He had a shock of black hair, worn rather long, plenty of colour in his cheeks, and vivid black eyes. He got a great deal of enjoyment out of life and showed it.

They talked for a full hour after breakfast; then Frampton showed him the house. Again, he was delighted by the young man’s power of enjoyment. He loved the fair old house, and the modern work upon it. He loved the frescoes and the grace and colour of Frampton’s gear.

“Well, come out for a bit, and see the ‘grounds’.” Frampton said, “or rather, see the waters, for they are the chief beauties.”

They walked up the brook to the lake; some wild duck went up from before them, and at the lake’s end a heron rose and slowly flapped away.

“Those are the birds they used to hawk at,” Frampton said; “the heron would rise in great rings, and the hawk would rise, too, to try to get above him.”

“Gee,” the youth said, “I’d like to see some falconing. I never have.”

“I might try it here,” Frampton said. “But my chief interest here is going to be a bird sanctuary, a little farther down the valley.”

“Say,” the young man said, “have you got a bird sanctuary? Would you show it to me? Gee, I’d like to see that. And can you show me your English birds? Can you show me a robin red breast?”

A robin was in sight at that moment; Frampton pointed it out.

“When I was a kid,” the young man explained, “I’d a book with pictures of robins burying the babes in the wood.”

“Come down the valley,” Frampton said. “I’ll show you the wood, such as it is. There’ll be birds about, of course, and you’ll see them now that the leaves are off, but we’d better call at the house for glasses. Don’t expect much of a show.”

They walked down towards the house. Moving slowly down hill, parallel with them in the lane which skirted Frampton’s property on that side was a solitary horseman. At a point where he passed a gate they saw that he was in scarlet.

“Who’s the guy in red?” the young man asked.

Frampton remembered suddenly that it was the opening meet.

“It’s a hunter, of sorts,” he said. “There’ll be others.”

Looking about, he saw others coming down the hill; two men in rat-catcher, a woman on a grey, a man in a dark coat piloting three little girls on ponies.

“I’d forgotten about that,” Frampton said. “It’s what they call the opening meet of the hunting season here. They’re fox-hunters. They meet at a cross-roads just below there. Like to see ’em?”

“I sure would,” the young man said. “I’ve heard tell about fox-hunters, and when I was a kid, I’d a book about them. They don’t do it in my part of the States. Any hunting in my part gets done with a gun.”

Frampton looked at his watch.

“We’re late,” he said. “They’ll be off. But we’ll get glasses and see something. As a matter of fact, I want to see what they do.”

They quickened their pace; it was twenty-past eleven. Frampton went into the hall of Mullples and picked up two pairs of glasses from a table there. He led the way up the slope to the summer-house from which Margaret and he had first seen Spirr. As he walked, he heard some of the customary noises of a meet, the peculiar bark with which a hunt-servant speaks to hounds, the tuneful yelp of a hound getting, or expecting, correction, and the movements of a good many motorcars and the tinkle of bicycle-bells.

Before they reached the summer-house, the sun came out; they looked down on a transfigured scene. Plainly, the Tunsters had rallied to the opening meet; the countryside was full of people. The lanes were populous with riders and with cars trying to get past them. Riders, in scarlet or black or rat-catcher, were slowly moving along to what they thought might be good places. There were country people together at every gate and stile. Little companies of bicyclists, male and female, were coming in from Stubbington, or moving out, so as to forestall the hounds. At Tibb’s Cross, the lanes were jammed with cars, and to Frampton’s rage, there were dozens of people, riders and walkers, strolling in his field, between the Cross and the Wood.

“Look at the swine,” he said, “in my field, as bold as be damned.”

The American looked at him questioningly, not understanding why he was vexed. The next instant there came a cheer, a repeated triple cheer, from the crowd at the Cross, and then, on the second of the three cheers, as Frampton got his glass focussed on the scene, the huntsman of the Tunster came through the gate which Frampton had locked and wired only the day before. The gate was wide open; the huntsman rode through it, with a trailing thong. Frampton could see the jerk on his lips as he said: “Hounds, gemmen, hounds.” That was the thing they were cheering, the rape of the gate. At the hunter’s heels came the famous pack of the Tunsters, all alive and alert and wild for the quarry.

“My Golly,” Frampton said, “they’ve broken my gate and are going to draw Spirr. My crumpet, but I’ll stop them.”

He was white and wild with rage. “Come on down,” he said.

He saw some rooks and two magpies come out of Spirr and go away. He saw, at once, that he could not possibly reach the covert in time. The lane just below was blocked with cars and people; three hundred people: he could not get through that press in time. He called again to the young man to come on down. He had some vague notion of braining Annual-Tilter, if he were there, with his binoculars. They had not gone three strides before the huntsman tooted with his horn. In an instant, the pack gave tongue, the whole pack was in cry. They were going off straight at the Spirr Wood fence. Nearly three-quarters of a ton of expensive dog went over the fence into the wood with a crash which Frampton plainly heard, with their huntsman beside them. All the crowd at the Cross cheered and cheered again; then instantly the riders at the Cross and in the fields were in motion, hats were being jammed down and cigars flung away, and the trembling horses put to it. There was a surge northwards from all the company. All Spirr rang with the excitement of the pack, the toots of the horn, and the View Halloos from the farther fence.

“Gee, that’s a great sight,” the young man said.

Indeed, it was a great sight; it was one of the most beautiful of sights. The leaves were off, you could see the trees; the autumn ploughing had turned up pale, dark and red earth; the roots were bright green against these; there was stubble on one field and bracken on the hill; there were scarlet berries in the hedge; a crab-tree was covered with yellow apples. Amid all that beauty, the Hunt was in full cry. Wherever Frampton turned his glasses, he saw people desecrating his estate, riding, smashing, trespassing. All the jam in the lane was trying to move; the bicyclists were already streaming off, and riders trying to pass. A car, which had been heading in the wrong direction, had tried to turn, and was now jamming the way just below them. He could see two labouring men, at the direction of a horseman in scarlet, trying to break a gap in his fence, so that the riders might get past the jam. The fence was too strong for them, but Frampton saw the effort made.

“The swine, the swine,” he said. “Right through my Wood, as though I’d asked them.”

“Gee,” the young American said, “I guess a hunting dog doesn’t give a damn for conscience.”

Indeed, they gave that impression, for they were out of the wood now, and away on the far side, going with heads up and sterns straight away for Wicked Hill, like the fox in the song.

“Gee,” the American said, “say, how can I see some more of them?”

“Nip into your car,” Frampton said; “go straight down that lane there, to Tibb’s Cross; take the first turn to the right; there are fewer cars on that lane than up here. You’ll catch them in ten minutes, or less; they can’t keep that pace, whichever way they’re heading.”

“Gee, I guess, if you’ll forgive me, I’ll do that,” the young man said. Looking at his host, he said: “Say, you look sore about something.”

“Sore?” Frampton said. “I told these swine I meant Spirr for a bird sanctuary, and they were to keep their foul pack out of it. And there, you saw them go slap through it.”

“I sure did,” he answered. “You can’t blame them; they smelled a fox and just went for him.”

“Hounds aren’t anarchists,” Frampton said. “They obey the word of command. This little game was planned.”

All this time, they were trotting down to the garage, where the American’s car was shining in the yard.

“Say,” the young man said, “you look real sore.”

“Would you like your sanctuary run through like that, after you’d asked for it to be let alone?”

“I guess I’d always like to see Englishmen enjoying themselves,” the young man said. “In my country, we sometimes think they can’t. Gee, it’s a great sight. And if you’ll excuse me, I’ll run after them, and come back for my things later. You sure you won’t come along and see them with me?”

“I will not,” Frampton said.

The lad said: “So long, then,” slammed his car-door and stepped upon the gas; he shot through the gates and away.

Some sightseers were now scrambling up the grass to the summer-house where he had just been standing. They were determined to have a better view of the vanishing hunt.

“Hi, you,” Frampton called, “get out of that. Get out of that.”

They turned to look at him, but continued their progress to the summer-house. Frampton left them for the instant. He wanted to see what harm had been done to Spirr. He set off thither on a run. In the lower part of his garden, he came suddenly on two ladies resting themselves on a bench beside his fishpool. One of them seemed scared, the other quite unabashed at his presence; they did not rise or apologise.

“Are you waiting for Mrs. Haulover?” he asked.

The hard one looked at him as at some curious wild beast and resumed her conversation.

“If you’re waiting for Mrs. Haulover,” he went on, “you’d be a lot more comfortable in the house.”

He noticed a curious scent, and thought: “You two have been necking liqueurs.”

The hard one produced and lit a cigarette.

“Are you Mr. Mansell?” she asked. “May we have a look around?”

“You seem to be having one,” he said.

“Really?” she answered. “Well, perhaps you’re right.”

The scent wafted into Frampton’s nostrils. “Anise,” he commented to himself. “You’re drunk.” He loathed drunken women. “Still,” he thought, “no-one will ravish this bird, drunk or sober.”

“The way out is down here,” he said, and passed on.

Their car was in his drive. They had driven it into the flower-beds in turning it; he took the number; he meant to learn the lady’s name. He then hurried on to Tibb’s Cross.

Nearly all the crowd had scattered now. The gate which he had chained and wired had been lifted off its hinges and left against the hedge. The chain and padlock were gone; the wire fastenings had been cut.

He walked rapidly across the field, towards the wood. An old man, whom he had not before seen, was standing in the field, staring, as men will, at the scene of some event, even long after the event has finished.

“Morning, sir,” the man said, touching his forelock. “They’m off for the wild west.”

“Yes, so it seems,” he answered.

He was raging still at the insolence of the Hunt in disregarding his wishes. Yet he knew that Bynd could never have countenanced such disregard? Who had arranged this? He was pretty sure that it had been arranged. As he crossed the field, he remembered suddenly how the hounds had given tongue outside the covert. It was one of those mild autumn days in which all scents hang heavy, almost like weight and warmth together upon the palate. What if the scent of fox had reached the pack overwhelmingly from outside the covert, and that they had dashed off uncontrollably, at head? He knew nothing of fox-hunting, but remembered the American’s remark, that a hunting dog doesn’t give a damn for conscience. As to the huntsman, well, he was one of the pack on a hunting morning; if the hounds were off, he would probably go with them, and ask nothing better.

At this point, he stopped dead. On the warm air a waft came upon his open mouth; he smelt again the anise of which the woman had partaken.

“That’s the explanation, is it?” he muttered. “Aniseed; an aniseed drag, to take the Hunt through Spirr.”

He stooped towards the ground; at one point a few feet from him aniseed must had been spilled; the place was rank with it. He went on to the covert, noting the damage to the fence. Tim, his warden, was not in his cottage. Three boys and two men were strolling in the wood; he told them to be out of it. The smell of aniseed led him through the wood, over the stream by the little bridge, and out of the wood on the far side to a point where several horsemen had waited for some time. Fusees, two half-cigars, and some cigarette-butts lay on the poachings of the hunters’ hooves.

“They were in the know,” he commented. “They knew that the hounds would run through Spirr, and break just here. This is all planned.”

There was no need to go farther. Occasional wafts of anise reached him. The tracks of the Hunt were printed plain across the field; they had gone off for Joys Bridge and Wicked Hill, as in the ballad. Lines of the ballad, which he had now seen, came into his mind.

His mind meditated evil, but he saw that it might be difficult to catch the culprits and do evil to them. After all, could it be an offence to trail a bit of old rabbit or herring dipped in aniseed along the ground? This had every symptom of being a rag, devised by a few bright young things. That hard-mouthed jade in his drive, who stank of anise, was one of the contrivers, no doubt; she and a few of her set had probably laid the drag, given a wink and a tip to the Hunt servants and all had followed, as the night the day.

He thought, also, that it was possible that the rag had not been devised against, or at least not wholly against, himself. Why should they not have devised it against the crusted old sports who swore by the Tunster Tradition? Might it not have been fun to a queer kind of fool to hear these fellows blethering later about “a wonderful run, sir, over the very line taken on the Spirr Wood Day?” But he put this thought from him. His shutting of Spirr had angered every sportsman in the Tunster country. And anyhow, the Hunt had known that he wished the Wood to be respected. Anyone who had seen his gate, chained, padlocked and wired fast, would have known that it was devised to keep people from passing through. Instead of regarding it, they had burst it open by force, lifted it from its hinges and left it unshipped. The Hunt had done that. Those fellows, whom he had seen urging two men to break his fence, would not have scrupled to bid others to lift the gate out of the way. Well, what he could do, he would do to trace the guilty. In any case, the hounds had trespassed; the Hunt was responsible for that. If he could make them squirm for it, he would. But he knew that poor old Bynd had nothing to do with it. Tilter was the lad, Annual-Tilter. His heart was raging for a victim, and at this point he thought of Timothy, his caretaker. Where was Timothy that morning of all mornings? Why had not Timothy seen the drag being laid and come to report? “He’s nothing but a damn young slacker,” he thought. But had the young slacker been bribed by the bright young things to be out of the way? Had he been lured out of the way? Well, after all, if he had gone to Stubbington to shop, it would have been no great sin. Anyhow, one young man could hardly have stopped a pack in full cry with their heads up.

However, he would deal with Tim later; he had some sleuthing to do. He meant to take casts of the footprints at the point where the hounds had “found” and gone off.

There was one point, where aniseed had been lavishly spilled. At this point, there were footprints in the soft soil. He was used to making and taking plaster casts; he took good plaster casts of these. Two women and a tall man, all wearing expensive boots or shoes, had loitered for a moment there. It was not very helpful. After all, many people had been at Tibb’s Cross all the forenoon; fifty or sixty such might have been in the field.

“Those two birds who were at my pond were the women,” he muttered. “I’ll now get the prints of their feet in my flowerbed and near that bench.”

He did so, and found that undoubtedly the two women from the car had been the two who had loitered in the field. He took his casts to his study and telephoned to the police, to say that the Hunt at Tibb’s Cross had broken open and unhinged his gate, and run through his preserve. He wished them to enquire into this, because he meant to prosecute. All these things took him until nearly two o’clock; he lunched then, still raging, composing, as he ate and raged, a letter to the Hunt Secretary.

After lunch he was busy with other matters. After tea, he thought: “I’ll get along, now, to Spirr, to find what Timothy knows of all this.” But Timothy hadn’t returned to the warden’s lodge in the covert. “Nothing for it, but to do a pub-crawl,” he thought. He judged that shopping would have taken perhaps an hour and a half, shopping and a haircut, two hours; but this absence meant a binge. “Rotten young ass,” he growled.

He drove first to the Hare and Hounds Inn, near Weston Mullples. He noted, as he pulled up, that Timothy had repainted the inn-sign.

“Did it for a bottle of gin, probably,” he growled, but had to admit that he had done it with a certain go.

However, Timothy hadn’t been there lately, not since week afore last, the man thought; but Mr. Mansell might find him along at The Adventure. Frampton called at the Prior’s Arms on the way to The Adventure, but drew the covert blank. The Adventure was a big old inn standing well back out of the traffic on the Stubbington road. As Frampton pulled up in that recess or bay in which the inn stood, he noticed the battered little run-about, which Tim called his tin-lizzie. From inside the bar, the clear and pleasant voice of Tim rang out in a ballad.

He sang it charmingly, as was his way when a little drunk; the audience, being much moved by a touching poem, did not applaud, but murmured.

Frampton went into the bar, which smelt and looked like other country bars. A game of darts was on one wall. Behind the bar was a big, stuffed, moth-eaten badger in a glass case, and a framed almanac of twenty-three years before, showing a lifeboat approaching a wreck. A tall, tired-looking man, in his shirt-sleeves, was leaning behind the bar. Three men were sitting on the settles. Timothy and another man, a dapper little figure, very black and trim, were at the bar. The dapper man was saying:

“A sad but frequent case. Have another gin, Timothy.”

Frampton had come in meaning to have Timothy out of it and to give him a roasting, but he suddenly recognized the landlord.

“Why,” he said, “aren’t you Mr. Hordiestraw, who used to keep the inn at Tallant Bay, in Devon? What brings you so far from home?”

“Why, Mr. Mansell,” the man said, “we’m all simple fules, when it comes to city men. I reckon we’m all greedy, when the bacon is dangled. I was made a proper fule of; that’s why I’m here. They say rogues don’t prosper. Maybe they don’t for long, but they prosper proper for a time; iss vai.”

Frampton asked him a question or two, while the eyes of all the people present turned upon him. The little dapper man had moved discreetly to the door. Frampton heard one of the men present say “the chap at Mullples”; the stares became intense, while old Hordiestraw told the tale of his disaster; they knew the story, but they had not yet seen at such advantage this chap what they said was mad and had naked folks painted on his walls. There came the noise of a little car starting off. Timothy had judged that the glass was falling and had made for cover.

Hordiestraw said: “I well remember what you liked, Mr. Mansell.” He went to a door leading inwards from the bar and called: “Lily, Lily, bring up a bottle of Yellow Tommy. Here’s Mr. Mansell come in.”

Lily brought in Yellow Tommy, so called from being made from yellow tommy, or dandelion. She greeted Mr. Mansell, whom she had not seen for seven years, but well remembered from the days of their prosperity at Tallant’s Bay, when they had had a snug little inn of their own, and Mansell had stayed there with old Naunton who was on a sketching tour. Lily wept as she remembered. She asked after Mr. Naunton, and whether he still went on with his sketching, much as one might have asked if Mr. Wordsworth still liked Nature and that. An old man, who saw the Tommy being poured, called out:

“You be careful of that stuff, Mr. Mansell. There came a London man here, drank some of it last week. Her didn’t wake up for thirty hours.”

Another replied, that “the London man was a proper mazed article, there could be no going by him.”

Frampton remembered the cordial from of old. It was very fine stuff, but a very little of it was plenty.

Whether it was the Yellow Tommy or some other reason, Frampton suddenly felt, with a pang of emotion, that this old, unhappy, cheated inn-keeper and his wife had been nicer and more welcoming to him, and plainly much gladder to see him, than anyone in all that district in which he had made his home. He saw, too, why Timothy preferred this kind of company.

“It isn’t preference with him,” he thought; “it’s Hobson’s choice. If I’m cut, what must he be?”

However, he was at the staple of news; he tried to gather some.

“You had the hounds past you this morning,” he said. “Did they kill, did you hear?”

From the kind of cold plob with which the question fell, he knew at once that all there knew that a drag had been laid across Spirr, specially to spite himself. Some of them, he knew, must have seen the hounds; but all there knew the truth. They had been revelling in the truth all day.

Old Hordiestraw squirmed; but Yellow Tommy had loosened his cocks.

“There was a man here,” he said, “just afore you come in, Mr. Mansell; he said, he see them get to it, out beyond the bridge there. He said it was a drag they were running; just a bit of skin and aniseed.”

“I marvel their doing that,” Frampton said; “there are lots of foxes about.”

There was an uneasy squirming all round; they knew the truth, and suspected now that Mr. Mansell was out to get at the culprits, which would never do. No information was going to be had there. But two young men came in at that moment, and asked for a pint apiece.

“There’ll be upsets,” one of these men said. “There’ll be changes in these parts, from this fatal day.”

“What’s the matter?” Hordiestraw asked.

“Poor Colonel Purple Tittup’s been killed, hunting.”

“No? When?”

“About half after three. He was jumping under a tree, and hit his head on a bough. Alf and I brought him in on a hurdle.”

“Was he alive, then?”

“No, dead. He was killed, dead, and never knew what hit him.”

“Where was this?” one of the men asked.

“Just this side of Russell’s. They stopped the Hunt, of course.”

“Well, it was a quick end,” somebody said. “And you’re right, it may bring changes. He owned all of Stubbington Great Wood. All that will have to be sold.”

The young man who had brought the news finished his pint.

“It’ll be the end of Stubbington Wood, and Tittups, too,” he said. “No-one’ll take an old den like that to live in. It’s time these big estates got broken up, that’s what I say.”

“Tittups was a fine place in my grandfather’s time,” the other young man, Alf, said. “Lots of beer going.”

The two men were at the bar; they had caught up the communal dice-box and were throwing threes for who should pay for the pints. They had not noticed Frampton, who was at the far end of the bar, in bad light. Alf lost the throws and paid. His friend looked up and said:

“They laid a drag through Spirr, ’s morning. That was a quiff of that lad they call Pob Ted and his piece, the Brass-Eyed Sarah, to spite this toff who closed the wood. . . .” Hordiestraw made him a sign to shut up, but he was not quick in reading the sign, and in any case not prone to silence. “A damn good quiff, too,” he went on. “Why should a damn London toff come down here and spoil people’s sport? What did a London toff want in a rotten old drain like Mullples, anyway?”

Mrs. Hordiestraw, who was in misery at this, now whispered “Hush.”

He looked at her defiantly:

“Why should I hush? I don’t see.”

Frampton came along the bar to him.

“She was afraid you might hurt my feelings,” he said. “I’m the man at Mullples. It’s all right; no harm’s done, and no ill feelings caused. You couldn’t know I was here. But I bought Mullples because I thought it too fine a house to be let fall to pieces. Mrs. Hordiestraw, I wonder if we may have a bottle of Yellow Tommy, so that we can all have some?”

Mrs. Hordiestraw brought out a bottle; the cordial went round; it was said to be rare good tackle. The two young men looked at Frampton with friendlier eyes, but at the same time were wary. At the second passing of Tommy, the talk turned on the late Colonel Tittup. One there had seen him ride by that morning, on his way to his death. They had liked the old chap; he had done some manful things in his day; some of the friendly, stupid, testy and kindly things done and said by him were recounted. Frampton thought that the knowledge shown was extraordinary. The Colonel would have known nothing like this of any one of the men who thus discussed him.

“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:

(“He’d have been a damn sight sorrier to find me in,” Frampton growled.)

(“Now we come to the main point,” he growled.)

“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.

The next letter was from the Stubbington Gazette, a little four-page weekly, which he had seen once or twice. He had passed its office in Stubbington several times; usually the window was full of the week’s local photographs, and thereby conspicuous. The letter ran:

He knew Charles Harold, of course, as a young and brilliant chemist, who had left the Works in order to make a special study of certain matters in China. So here was another Harold, probably a most unusual chap, running a little paper and writing about modern painting.

“There’s real genius in that family,” he thought.

He went to the telephone at once, got through to Mr. Harold, and asked him to come to lunch that day. He would be in Stubbington, and would bring him out to Mullples. Things weren’t so bad, perhaps, if over at Stubbington there were people who knew about Cobb.

When this had been arranged, he drove over to Stubbington to the police station, where he explained that he owned Spirr Wood, that he had warned the Hunt that he wished it to be observed as a bird sanctuary, and not to be drawn, and that conspicuous notices of PRIVATE were at several points. In spite of this (here he produced his casts), a drag had been run through it, his gate broken open and unhinged, and his fields and property trespassed upon and damaged. He wanted summonses against those who had broken open the gate, laid the drag and ridden the covert. He said that he had reason to suppose that the drag was laid by a Miss Drachm, and two friends. The casts on the table were of the footprints of the three whom he believed to be guilty of the drag, but the Hunt must have known of the drag and were guilty of the trespass. The Master and the huntsman, and probably the Whip as well, must have been in the secret. He had taken pains to show the Hunt that Spirr Wood was to be a bird sanctuary, and as such not to be disturbed. He had spent, as he put it, a pot of money on the place, and would not permit his wishes to be flouted thus.

The Police Inspector was a large and genial man; he had had a man out to Spirr to see the damage done.

“You could see they’d been in the field,” he said. “They’d had the wires round the gate cut with clippers and had taken the gate off the hinges. Since you insist upon it, Mr. Mansell, the summonses shall be issued. Are you sure that the PRIVATE notices could be seen?”

“Certain,” Frampton said.

“My man says that he didn’t see any notices.”

“They were there.”

“He says he couldn’t see any. He says he couldn’t see much damage to the wood, except just at the fence.”

“The fence and the gate,” Mansell said.

“You see,” the Inspector went on, “the bench has no jurisdiction for trespass, unless damage is done. And the damage must be done wilfully and/or maliciously.”

“I do not say that much damage was done,” Frampton said. “I say that some was done, wilfully and maliciously. The Master of the Hunt could have stopped his servant trespassing on the field. The huntsman could have stopped the hounds entering the covert. They didn’t; and I’ll have them up for it.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” the Inspector said. “You leave it to the Law.”

“Do you know anyone named Pob Ted?” Frampton asked.

The Inspector’s brow clouded.

“Him and Miss Drachm’ll be my death one day,” he said, but said no more.

After this, Frampton went on to meet Richard Harold at the Gazette office. He was a young man, with a whimsical, clever face, very like his chemist brother, but with a feeling for art, which the chemist was without.

He was like the young naval officer in charge of a picket-boat, very happy in his first command. As the young naval man may thrill at the question, “Who commands this saucy packet?” so did Richard Harold thrill when someone clumped up the dark and winding stair, and asked: “Where can I find the Editor?”

“It’s no great shakes of a place,” Harold explained. “It’s in the old premises of the founder, with the press at the back, there. But it’s awfully interesting experience. I’ve been here a year, and I’ve enjoyed every second of it.”

The Editor’s room was certainly no great shakes of a place, being littered with old galleys, old books of reference, files of script, and heaps of advertisements. It looked out upon a yard, beyond which were the printing works. Down below, in a dingy den, two young men worked at their calling with scissors and paste. Frampton got the young man into his car, with the feeling that this lad would not long be at Stubbington. He mentioned his feeling; Harold blushed, and said that he had put in, as it happened, for a real paper elsewhere, but would not know just yet.

At lunch, they talked of art, of which Richard knew much, not wholly as a scholar. He had been for a time under Berquin in Paris, trying to etch.

“What on earth made you chuck Paris and etching with a chap like Berquin, to come to edit a Gazette in Stubbington?” Frampton asked.

“Well,” Richard said, “if you saw my etchings, perhaps you might not ask that. I’m no good as an etcher, and never shall be. Berquin told me that I etched just like an Anglais, ‘for the advertisement, yes, perhaps, in the provinces, but for the Art, no.’ He told me the truth, and as I’d come to suspect it, it didn’t hurt too much. I know that I’ve a flair for running a paper. I did it at school rather well. I heard that the Gazette here was dicky. My mother used to know the owner years and years ago. I went to the old chap and asked if I might not have a try at pulling it round. Nihil praestat buccae. Nothing like cheek. So I got the job; and I’ve got it round. I hope to get a quite big provincial paper presently, and then start on my own, and enter politics. It isn’t what I’d hoped for myself, but it’s what I know I can do. Old Berquin told me what I’d begun to suspect: ‘’Arold, you are not artist, you are gentlemans.’ Well, he is right, but I do love art, and I must say it is a pleasure to come to a house like this, only a few miles from Stubbington, and see all these things and find you, who know it all.”

“There doesn’t seem to be much art in Stubbington. People don’t seem much to care for it,” Frampton said.

“How can they care for it?” Harold said. “If it ever touches their lives at all, it is as something rammed into them from above, by someone plainly not enlightened.”

“I’m delighted to hear you say that,” Frampton said.

“The best thing that one can say about them is, that they know well enough that art of that sort isn’t any good to them. It isn’t any good to anybody. Art is a thing that must have roots in life. Any sort of weed-art is better than, the sort of cut-flowers-art, which these chaps sometimes try to foist on them. The arts of Stubbington are considerable, however. The dairy-farms are good; there are three flower-farms which are remarkable; not on this side, of course; you’ll be on the Waste here. There are some market-gardens out towards Tatchester, and especially towards Stanchester, which are worth a visit. But, of course, all these things do not count. The real interest, excitement and energy, all the really creative elements of the soul, are devoted to sport, shooting to some extent, and just round Stubbington there is fishing, but mainly fox-hunting. That is the real or only delight and joy to the well-to-do in this county and the four all round it. As far as these people have an art, that is their art, and there can be no doubt that they practise it whole-heartedly. You know, there’s a lot to be said for it.”

“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.

The news that the Hunt had been summoned to the Magistrates’ court spread through the land and filled the countryside with fury. Here was this gun fella summonsing the Master; the fella must be mad, first of all tries to spoil sport, then can’t take a joke. Of course, those young fools are young fools, but hang it all, to summons the Hunt. Chap ought to be put in Coventry; ought to be horse-whipped; ought to be shot.

The case was heard a few days later at the Stubbington Magistrates’ Meeting. It was well advertised in the nation’s Press. Dick Harold gave Frampton a hint that a fairly tough set of sportsmen were going to duck him at the bridge there. Frampton said, let them try it. He didn’t much believe in listening to threats, but set out to the Court with a knuckleduster in each pocket, just in case. He would mark one or two before they got him into any river. Just before he started, his lawyer warned him, by telephone, that there was a good deal of feeling, and that the London Press were taking it up.

“Let them take it up,” he said. “The trespass and damage are undoubted. The more the folly of the idle is made apparent the better.”

The Magistrates met on Market Days at Stubbington; the little town was very full. He left his car at a garage, some distance from the Court, and walked the rest of the way. For the greater part of his journey he was not recognised. The crowds were country folk come in for the market. When he began to draw near the Court, he saw that the Press was there in strength. Cinema and camera men were on all the doorsteps opposite the Court-house; unmistakable interviewers were at the Court-house door. In the street leading to the Court was a crowd of the friends of the defendants. There they all were: Hard-Riding Dick, old Bill Ridden, the Kowzer, with his Morny-Cannon tile with a woodcock feather in its band, several chaps with slit mouths and the eyes of grooms, and several nondescript lads, in baggy plus-fours with tassels at the knee. The women were all of one sort; though one or two wore jodhpores instead of skirts, they all wore the same sorts of tweed, shoes and hats; all were made up in the same ways, with the same clip and the same ripple in their hair, the same vermilion streak instead of a mouth, and the same thin lines instead of eyebrows. They smoked the same kind of cigarette, each with the same air of not liking it but being unable to do without it, and all those who wore no gloves had the same red finger-nails, as though they had been scratching rivals.

“But what rivals can these creatures have?” he asked. “What man could put in for one of these?”

He passed through this brazen company towards the policemen at the door; and as he passed, he heard their comment, which was meant for him to hear. The Press sprang into action as he approached; the ostler-looking men called to them, not to let the mucker break their cameras; the interviewers surged round, asking questions, which he would not answer; the cinema-men worked their little wheels till he was inside the door. He went into the Court and took a seat. Presently, the Magistrates came in, and the first case was called, of Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer’s assistant, for trespassing in pursuit of game. The case was slowly presented by a policeman, who spoke so that each word might be recorded by a slow scribe; but the evidence when heard and weighed did not suffice; Sampson was dismissed.

Frampton’s case was the second on the list. The preliminaries were soon settled, and the issue joined. Frampton, looking about him, saw that the Court was crammed with people. All the Hunt was there. Wherever he turned his eyes, he saw a face staring at him with hostility. He liked hostility. He lived by it. These were his enemies; he had fought them in the War and ever since. He thought them idle and stupid; and if he had to fight them on points in which they were neither of these things, why, all the better. Anyhow, there was his real enemy, Annual-Tilter; he’d brought Annual-Tilter there; that was worth any money. He looked at the Tilter and his wife; though they were surrounded by all their friends, they seemed uneasy. He rejoiced at the sight.

But the case had begun. A policeman, again humouring the slow scribe, was with maddening prolixity saying:

“On hearing that a trespass a trespass with damage had been said to have been committed at Spirr Wood in this County I went to the said Wood . . .” He went on to say how he had seen Spirr Wood, its gate, unhinged, its battered fence, but no notices of Private. Then, acting on information received, he had spoken to the accused, who had not denied the fact.

The accused, the Brass-Eyed Sarah, Pinkie, and Pob were now sworn. Pob, who was not at his usual bright best, spoke for the three of them. He said:

“It was a rag, that’s all it was; just a rag. You know, he turned us out of Spirr Wood. He wouldn’t let the hounds draw Spirr. I mean to say, what? So I said, let’s put a drag across the covert. That’s all it was; just a rag.”

“Yes,” came the question, “but after laying the drag, you took certain steps to ensure that the hounds should follow the drag. Will you tell the Court what those steps were?”

“It was only just a rag. We told old Bill to let the hounds hunt the drag, and Joe to view a fox away.”

“These were the Hunt servants, in short?”

“Yes; the Huntsman and the Whip.”

“Did you give them anything to encourage them to this course? How much did you bribe them with?”

“I say, you know, it wasn’t a bribe, what. It was a tip. I gave them the usual sort of tip. One always gives them something on the opening day.”

“Nothing more than your usual tip? How much altogether? And did this sum come from your own pockets or from all you three conspirators?”

“I paid; the others said they would give it me presently.”

“Did they?”

“No.”

“Why not? Have you dunned them? Why haven’t they paid?”

“They’ve had rather a bad week or two with the dogs.”

“But bribing the Hunt servants was not enough for your purpose. All three of you were active at Tibb’s Cross, were you not, saying that Mr. Mansell wanted the hounds to draw Spirr? You unhinged the gate? You took down all the notices to support these misstatements?”

“It was all just a rag; that’s all it was.”

“But you did take down the notice-boards, and you did spread that report, a false report, knowing it to be false?”

“It was only a rag. We wanted the rag to come off. It was only fun.”

“Is lying fun to you?”

“We didn’t think anybody would mind a bit of fun.”

“Would you have thought it fun if somebody had bribed the Hunt to ride over your mother’s flower-garden?”

“Yes.”

“Would she have thought it fun?”

“She’d have entered into the fun of the thing.”

“What is the fun of the thing?”

“Why, just doing the thing; scoring someone off. We were scoring him off for stopping Spirr Wood. Any decent chap would see it was meant for a rag.”

“You think that when three people old enough and civilised enough to know better do an insolent and harmful thing, a man is bound to conclude that they only do it for fun?”

“Yes, of course they only do it for fun.”

“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.

“I was to have shared life with Margaret in a beautiful place; and instead of that I’m in hell, fighting the local skunks alone.”

That was the thought always present to him, in the Works, and at Mullples, and in all those places about Newbury which brought memories of her. He did not think it so often when driving alone at night. Besides, if he took a car and went away at a venture, soon after dinner, he dodged the long evening alone. He could reach the sea at a lonely point of the coast, in a little more than an hour. That was a favourite run of his. Or he could enter a distant city, and seek out the queer places of amusement in its lower ways, thinking that “what amuses the foundation of the race may amuse me, who am shaken to my foundation.” It did not amuse him in the least his old friends, well, he shrank from them; he was a hurt beast shunning the herd, and they, knowing his queerness and prickliness shrank from him, fearing to hurt him and rouse an explosion. So he began to drive out from Mullples late in the evenings and return in the early mornings after runs of a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles. Then he took to driving afield before dinner, to dine far off among strangers, in odd places, where no-one and no thing could remind him of his past, where he would be the unknown among the unknown, in a relationship too brief to be unhappy.

Then he took to searching in shops of second-hand goods for books and prints of interest to himself. He had always had a flair for things; he beat through the grimy nooks of many a foul old shop, and found much that was of value, but unfashionable at the moment. But what good was it? He didn’t want the things. Margaret was dead, who might have liked them.

Soon after the Magistrates’ Court, it chanced that he was driving home late in a dark, moist and somewhat misty night, bad for driving, upon roads not well known to him. He was saying to himself: “Somewhere near here there’s a beast of a bend,” when he knew suddenly that the bend was there, just ahead. He slackened and changed gear, and proceeded round with caution. As he came round, he saw something on the road in front of him; he switched all his lights upon it. A big car, with its bows in the ditch to the left, was slued half across the road. As it was on the bend of the road, Frampton crawled past it, put his car in safety, and came back with a strong pocket torch to examine.

“There’ll be a corpse or two under that,” he told himself. “Blessed are they who find a motor-smash, for they will be charged with manslaughter.”

He flashed the light of his torch upon the wreck. A figure of a man in evening dress rose unsteadily from the ditch, screening his eyes from the light. Frampton recognized him at once; this was Pob Ted, who found it so difficult to get anything to do; Pob Ted, the leader of the drag.

“Are you badly hurt?” Frampton asked. “Is anyone hurt?”

“No, there’s nothing the matter. But something’s happened to this damned car,” Pob said. “Funny thing. I can’t get her to start. The ignition’s konkt, or something.”

He was unsteady in his gait. A sweet and strong smell of alcohol was diffused all round him. Frampton saw a little blood trickling down his face.

“I’ve been working at the self-starter the last half-hour,” Pob went on. “Can’t get a signal.”

“Let’s have a look,” Frampton said. “It looks to me as though more than the ignition has gone. Are you all alone here?”

“Just like Jonah in the whale,” Pob said.

Frampton turned the light on the wreck. Like most motor wrecks, it looked bad, because of the crumpling of the wings; but this one was bad; more than the wings had suffered. The left front wheel was bent to a V shape, and the fore part of the car was very nearly wrenched off the rest of it; the windscreen had been torn off. It seemed to Frampton that Pob must have been flung through it.

“How did the car get in the ditch?” Frampton asked.

“Some damned chap must have put it there,” Pob said. He laughed in a crazy, weak way. “Some damned chap when I wasn’t looking, what.”

“That’s the idea,” Frampton said, thinking that this was a concussion case and should be treated in bed as soon as might be. “It wants a vet, this car,” Frampton said. “You’ll not start this car to-night. You’d better let me drive you home. Where d’you want to go?”

“I don’t want to go without the car,” Pob said. “It’s my father’s car. He doesn’t let me drive this. It’s only the ignition’s got some grit on it; any grit’s bad for ignition. If you’ll give me a hand to start her, I’ll be all right.”

“The car’s ruined,” Frampton said. “Look. See for yourself. It’ll cost a sink of monkeys to mend this car, if she can be mended. Jump into my car, and let me drive you home. Or, better still, get your father’s driver to come out with you to look at the ignition.”

“Old Bill Bailey will get her to start,” Pob said. “Wonderful feller, Bill Bailey; and, of course, he knows this car.”

“Come on, then; I’ll drive you to him. Where is he to be found.”

“He lives at the Manor, Stubbington,” Pob said, “the same as me. You know, it’s very funny, the car getting into that state. It must have had a push. You know, more I come to think of it, more it seems someone ran into me and didn’t stop. Some bounder road-hog feller; lots of ’em on the road; no manners, no road sense. They hit a chap and go on.”

“Well,” Frampton said, “here’s my car. You’d better sit still and not talk. You have had a bang, I should judge, even if you don’t remember it.”

He helped Pob into the seat beside him. “It’s only a few miles,” Pob said. “It’s awfully decent of you to give me a lift like this.”

He saw Frampton’s face for an instant, as he took his seat. Frampton switched off the light as he took the wheel, but some memory was touched in Pob.

“I say,” he said, “do I know you? I seem to have seen your face somewhere. I suppose I met you out hunting.”

“One meets a lot of chaps out hunting,” Frampton said.

“Yes, by Jove,” Pob said, “one does meet a lot out hunting. I say, were you out the opening day? Tibb’s Spirr Cross Day? We had a rare old score off that gunman. We laid a drag through his bally old cover. The chap’s an awful bounder; a bolshie who makes guns; wants to stop hunting. Stinks of money, of course; all these chaps do. But we scored him off all right. I wonder, have you got a spot of brandy on you? Always carry brandy in a car myself. Would you mind just turning back and get me a spot of brandy? It’s in the car; in the pocket of my car. A bottle, half-full of the Best.”

“I saw it all smashed to flinders,” Frampton said. “Besides, I must go on. I’ve got an appointment.”

“I say, what rotten luck,” Pob said crossly. “You needn’t keep an appointment at this time of night. I say,” he said suddenly, “is this my car?”

“No,” Frampton said, “it’s mine.”

“Well, I wish you’d let me drive to a pub; or let me drive.”

“I’ll drive, thanks.”

“But I like driving.”

“Not so much as I do.”

“By Jove, I’m going to drive,” Pob said. “I’m going back for the brandy.” He grabbed at the wheel. As it chanced, Frampton had expected something of the sort and elbowed him off pretty hard. “I must get back to my car,” Pob cried.

“I’m taking you there. You’ll be there in a minute,” Frampton answered.

After a time, Pob said:

“I wonder would you mind stopping? I rather think I shall cat.”

Frampton stopped the car, Pob tottered out and was sick.

“I say,” he said, “I wonder if you’ve a spot of brandy on you.”

“I’ll take you to some wonderful brandy in a few minutes,” Frampton said.

“What’s become of Pinkie?” Pob asked suddenly.

“Pinkie?”

“Yes. Pinkie-Punkie we call her. She was in the car with me.

“You mean, that she was in your father’s car?”

“Yes, of course.”

It gave Frampton a qualm, to think that he had left a corpse or wounded woman in that ruined car in the ditch. He had not examined the ruins thoroughly, in fact, he hadn’t examined them at all. It was possible that the broken corpse of Pinkie-Punkie, or worse still, her suffering body, that might still be saved, did lie under the wreck there.

“You said you were alone. You said nothing was the matter,” he growled. “Where had you been with Pinkie? Where were you coming from?”

“We’d been for a few cocktails.”

“Then, she is lying under the car still. We’d better go back and fetch her.”

He turned the car at a farm gate, and ran back. Pob told him about the emotional natures of Pinkie-Punkie and the Brass-Eye. “They were two of the best,” he said.

Frampton was cursing himself for not having examined the wrecked car for other passengers.

“You’re quite sure she was with you?” he asked.

“Yes, quite sure.”

“How are you sure?”

“We were having a row.”

“What were you having a row about?”

“It wasn’t really a row; it was more a discussion, if you know what I mean, what we’re to do for our next rag with the gun feller, you know, the bounder who was so rude to the Bynds, and turned the hounds out of Spirr, and had us up before the beaks. I said we’d get stink-bombs and stink him out of house and home. Feller’s an awful swine. Had us up before the beaks. Imagine a chap having a chap up before the beaks for a rag. So I said, stink-bombs and stink him out. But Pinkie said, she and Brass-Eye were all for bed bugs. They’d got some bed bugs in London; they wanted me to put them in the feller’s bed. Well, I mean to say; what?”

They reached the scene of the smash. Frampton left his car, but locked the ignition and took the key. He was not going to give Pob a chance to get away with it, just for a rag.

“She was sitting in front with you?” he asked.

“Yes, of course, cuddling me.”

Frampton could only judge that she’d been hurled over the fence into the field beyond. He had read of such things. He did not believe that anyone had run into the car from behind. This young sot had been tearing along, hell-for-leather, with a girl alongside and a belly full of brandy; naturally he had gone bang into the ditch, at sixty or seventy miles an hour.

“Pinkie will be the far side of the fence,” he thought, “with her silly head broken off its stalk.”

However, there was no Pinkie there. No Pinkie had fallen across the hedge; nor could anybody have been flung through it. It was unlikely that any chariot of fire had descended to translate the lady. It was certain that no lady, nor any part of a lady was in the ruins of the car.

“I seem to remember, now,” Pob said, “that Pinkie said she’d get out and see Sarah, and then I should call at the cross-roads and pick her up.”

“Which cross-roads?”

“Oh, some bally cross-roads, or other. I do wish you’d a spot of brandy. You saw how catty I was just now. A feller needs a spot of brandy after being catty. I say, will you go and pick up Pinkie?”

“But you don’t know where.”

“Yes, I do; at the cross-roads.”

“Which cross-roads?”

“I say, you know, you are a oner for asking questions. There aren’t so many cross-roads as all that.”

“She’ll have gone home, long ago,” Frampton said. “What I recommend is for you to come and have some special 1811 brandy I’ve got.”

“I say, have you really got 1811 brandy?”

“A little, for great nights.”

“I say, I seem to have met you somewhere.”

Frampton lured him to the car with the talk of brandy.

“I say,” Pob said, “I’ll drive. I know zackly where to find Pinkie.”

“Brandy first, Pinkie later,” Frampton said. “Wine always comes before women.”

He took the wheel, and set forth. Pob made two attempts to take the wheel; one was unexpected and nearly put the car across the road.

“Where is the brandy?” Pob called.

Presently, at five minutes past midnight, Frampton pulled up at Stubbington Manor.

“How about that brandy?” Pob called.

“You’ll want some of that,” Frampton said, “when your father hears what’s come to the car.”

Getting out, he rang the door-bell vigorously. Pob in the car cried:

“Now we’ll see who’s going to drive.”

However, the car did not respond. Frampton rang again, a lusty peal, and beat the knocker.

“There’s something wrong with this ignition,” Pob cried. “I can’t get the thing to start.”

“The petrol’s turned off inside the bonnet,” Frampton said.

“No? Is it really?”

He clambered out unsteadily, just as a man in night-gown and overcoat opened the door, which had been locked, chained, barred and bolted for the night.

“I’ve brought Mr. Pob home,” Frampton said. “He’s been in a car smash, close to the Stanchester cross-roads. His car is all in pieces there. You’d better warn the police and the A.A. people. It ought to have red lights. He’s had a concussion and ought to have a doctor at once.”

“Will you come in then, Mr. Edward?” the butler said.

Pob lurched unsteadily, but in the general direction of the door.

“I’m quite all right,” he said, “but, Bill, I want a spot of brandy, just to settle me before I go on to Sarah. And I want you to look at the car. Ignition’s gone.”

Mrs. Method-Methodde appeared at the door, and called:

“Is that Ted? Where have you been, Ted? You’re ever so late.”

Frampton drove off. They could deal with their darling in their own way, he thought; he himself had had enough of him. He hurried home, and at once telephoned to the police, that a big car was wrecked at the bend, and needed red lights upon it.

Not long after this, he received, by the post, a printed paper giving particulars of the sale of Stubbington Great Wood and the desirable residence of Tittups House.

There were photographs of Tittups House, and descriptions of its tennis-courts, gardens (kitchen, fruit and flower), and of the three hundred and fifty acres of magnificent timber, known as the Stubbington Great Wood. Frampton had been to Tittups, to return the Colonel’s call, and knew it as a big, derelict, hideous, dilapidated Georgian mansion, with no bathroom for anybody, and hateful little attics for the servants. The Wood he knew to be one of the outlying spurs of the Waste; it was all on mean, sick soil, and bore scrub and brush, and many small, stunted oaks, which never looked well. A forester with a large fortune to spend might have made something of it, but Purple Tittup had never spent any money on it, having none to spend. He had lived on at the house, and had shot the Wood thrice in each season. Twice a year, the hounds had met at Tittups, and had then drawn the Wood. Now it was all to be sold.

“It’s a rotten investment,” Frampton thought. “No one can use a house like that. No one will take it; no one will bid for it. Still,” he thought, “it will be going dirt cheap, with all the Wood. I’m not sure, that I won’t put in for it, to settle the Hunt from hunting on this side of the valley for good and all. Why hadn’t that Annual-Tilter swine the grace to apologise in Court, instead of talking his tommy-rot about everyone being free to follow foxes anywhere? Vermin, quotha; chaps like that are vermin, in this land.”

It chanced that that day Frampton had planned to drive to Sulhampton, to see the glass in the Abbey windows. It was a drive of some thirty-five miles from Mullples.

On leaving the Abbey, he turned towards the famous old Royalist tavern, King Charles’s Crown, for lunch. He had been there before, more than once. While he was lunching, he suddenly stiffened at the sound of a familiar, cracked voice, saying:

“They give a feller a very sound pie here.”

It was the Annual-Tilter in person, accompanied by his wife and another man, a rather big chap, with pop eyes and a heavy jowl. They took a table at some distance from him, near a window which looked on the street. They had not noticed him. They talked about what they were going to have for lunch, and how Millie had looked. The waitress took their orders, put one or two items on their table and then withdrew. Mrs. Annual-Tilter looked round, saw Frampton, looked hard, to make sure, and then with her hand made her husband look; all three looked. Frampton was aware of their stares; he stared back, and then, thinking that the chance was too good to miss, rose from his place, came over to their table, and said:

“You are Annual-Tilter, acting master of the Tunster. You were in charge, when your filthy dogs went through my bird sanctuary. Since you haven’t had the grace to apologise, let me tell you that I’ll stop your hunting in that part of Tatshire, if it costs me the last penny I’ve got. That’s all I’ve got to say to you at present.”

He turned his back upon them and walked back to his place. Sitting down, he stared, stare for stare, with his enemy, in whom he saw desire for battle checked by the knowledge that a scene would never do. He ate his cheese slowly, still staring at them. Mrs. Annual-Tilter said: “Outrageous.” The pop-eyed man meditated war, but did not wage it. Frampton drank his coffee slowly, still staring. He had made them squirm a little, he thought. He had made them Frampton-Mansell-conscious; they would remember the gun-fella in their prayers that night. When he had finished his lunch, and paid his bill, he stood up, nodded to them and strolled out.

“Now I see what to do,” he said to himself. “This has been just like an answer to prayer. Now I’ll make an offer for the Tittup ruin and all that filthy wood and put the Hunt out of all our side of Tatshire.”

He had no intention of paying one penny more for that derelict property than the lowest price he could screw them down to. As he explained to the agents in Stubbington ninety minutes later, the house was rotten, there was dry rot in the roof and wet rot in the wainscots. The handles and hinges were worth half a quid, the marble mantelpiece in the drawing-room might fetch a quid; and he would give them a bob a ton for the bricks. As for the Wood, well, he only asked them to look at it. No one could use the house in its present state. It wasn’t a dwelling-place. It couldn’t be made into a school, nor a nursing-home, nor a mad house. The Wood was one long disease. He would offer them, and here he named his price, and they could take it or leave it.

They left it, with indignation, that night, but within the week they thought better of it. They had missed their chance, however, and had to take much less. Ten days later, the property was his. He owned the Tittups property. This was a matter of great cheer to him.

“See, my little Fram,” he said, “you own Tittups, the seat of the fox-hunter, where Bahram, the great hunter, that great ass, used to live. You own the heart of the Tunster country, the sure find, the covert where the famous Tittup foxes le. iAnd now we’ll have the hunters out of it forever.”

He caused his lawyers to write a warning to the neighbouring Hunts, that they were to keep out of Stubbington as out of Spirr. He hired a firm of house-breakers to put the derelict house out of the way. He caused an enterprising firm to wire the fences of the estate.

“I’ll keep them out, the swine,” he muttered.

There were four melancholy cottages on the Tittups Estate; he put these under a deferred sentence of death. The people who lived in them had nowhere else to go.

“And now,” he said, “I’ll really do what I only suggested to the angry ham. I’ll make this a model community.”

He had thought of it a good deal since he had seen how bitterly it had been resented. It was a maxim of his: “When you see these duds writhing, be sure that what you’re doing is right; go on at it.” He had thought of a lot of schemes, had drawn up several plans with estimates vouched for by Rolly, and was tempted to begin upon it at once.

Rolly came down, to go over the ground with him. He began to be excited about this child of his invention. A community of fifty homes, two recreation centres and a school seemed to him to be a great return to be had for money. He was not sure how far he could insist on the school being run on his own lines, but he thought of the children who might graduate from that school, all lovely athletes, all able to sing and to play instruments, all able to draw, to speak and to act. He read eagerly the many books describing the many ideal settlements founded since the industrial age began to rouse protesters. He thought that he saw the causes of the failures of most of these. They had attracted usually the wrong kind of artist and the deadly kind of prig. Well, he would make this place the home of his very best workers, and make his new gun here.

Rolly was eager about the scheme; he gave of his very best thought to the planning and prepared those drawings which made such a sensation when exhibited. For a few days, just after the purchase of Tittups, Frampton felt that he had found again an interest in life.

He thought that it would annoy the local sportsmen if he advertised the forthcoming building in the Tittups estate. He, therefore, put up large posters in prominent places, to say that this was the site of the St. Margaret’s Model Village or Garden Suburb. A part of the Waste at the top of the hill seemed to him to be necessary to the completion of his plan. By great good fortune, it was possible for him to buy this, too. He had a diviner down, to run out the springs. There was abundant water on the estate. He began to figure out the question: Could his new gun be made there? He had received a specimen or trial piece showing something of the new gun. He was eager to have it made close to where it had been devised.

“It’ll make ’em squirm,” he thought.

Even so, he hesitated; it was too big a plunge to take for fun.

One afternoon it chanced that he was talking at Mullples to young Dick Harold, about acting as art adviser to the Stubbington War Memorial Committee. It seemed that Colonel Tittup’s death had re-opened this question of the War Memorial. The money was there; it had lain in the bank ever since 1919; and now that the old Treasurer, Tittup, was gone people, being reminded of it, felt that a new Committee should be formed and a Memorial raised. Dick Harold, as Editor, had printed some correspondence about it. Mr. Copshrews, the Rector of Stubbington, was strongly in favour; and Dick had suggested to Copshrews that Frampton would be a most useful adviser; “he knows everything about modern art and all the best artists; he’s the chap to have.” Copshrews had had misgivings about asking such a firebrand, but had suggested that the Committee, then being formed, should invite Frampton to come as adviser. Harold asked if he would consider the invitation.

“If the people really want me,” Frampton said, “of course I’ll come and do what I can. But I doubt that the people in these parts will want me.”

“Oh, they want you in Stubbington,” Harold said. “Stubbington isn’t like the country. With you advising, we may get something really good.”

At that moment, the telephone bell rang. It was the Works, eager to speak to him. Could he possibly come up to the Works at once; a most strange and interesting thing had happened? The line was not working very well; but after a time he learned what it was. Some picronoxyllethaline had given off its characteristic gas, noxytoxythanatophaline, although not exposed to any sudden rise of temperature.

This was the important thing, in fact a very important thing.

“Golly,” Frampton said at once, “it’s done that, has it? I’ll come up at once. That may mean £100,000 clear profit, straightaway.”

“At the least,” the chemist said, “if we can spot the cause.”

“How did it come about?” Frampton asked.

“We don’t know,” the chemist said. “But seven of the girls in No. C.P.N.L. room suddenly breathed a lot of N.T.T. and each of them had a characteristic reaction, that is, they went temporarily mad and bit eleven girls and a fireman. Of course, they’re beginning to cool down now, but we’d be glad if you’d come up.”

“I’ll come up at once,” he said.

“You seem to have important news,” Harold said.

“Yes,” Frampton said, “it may prove to be important. It may mean that we shall be able to get a very precious gas without a frightfully costly middle process. I’ll have to go up for it, I’ll have to rush.”

Harold had not seen Frampton in action before; he was, therefore, impressed to see him now. He was offered, and took, a lift as far as Stubbington. He judged later that Frampton was in the car, streaking to Shipton, to catch the express, within a minute of his laying down the telephone receiver. He was glad to leave the car in Stubbington, for Frampton went like the wind.

“Send me a wire if you make the express,” he called.

“I shall make it,” Frampton called; and did.

This was the kind of thing he most enjoyed; this made him function; this spurred up his imagination. Why had this P.N.L. given off its precious N.T.T.? He went through the possibilities and branchings of the case; all exciting. He did not care a twopenny rush for the seven young women, but the police and the Press would be probing, and it was important that neither should discover the cause of the discharge. They might be on the brink of a staggering secret which would revolutionise war. It might be possible to make the enemy population raving mad before the declaration of war, at a cost of sixpence a street; fifty pounds a city. Of course, the reaction was not lasting, as yet, but it might be made so. Imagine, anyhow, a little N.T.T. dropped on an enemy cabinet meeting, or into the members of a general staff, at some secret emergency meeting. A little scattered at a meet of the Tunsters might not be amiss.

He caught the express in good time. He was at the Works before they closed. In half an hour he had assumed control of the business, and had a fairy story out for the evening papers’ late editions. He turned like a sleuth to the point at issue, the cause of the giving-off of the gas in this shed of the P.N.L. The best of the chemists were with him, but it was his shrewd brain that narrowed the field of enquiry for them. When he had got them fired with his own enthusiasm, he visited the sick in the hospital. The seven were now nearly normal, and without any memory of what they had done under the influence of the gas. Those who had been bitten were not seriously hurt. He had a good way with his workers; nearly always they stood by him in a time of trouble; they did so now. His old father, who had been sorely pressed in his young days, had told him never to forget the text: “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.”

“If men or women give you their service, see that you give them far more than the market rate, and you’ll find your reward.” He always had found his reward.

The chase of the secret held him in London for all one week; then for a second week; then for a part of a third. He gave no thought to Mullples during this time. This chase was serious; and had to be followed to the end. In the end, it was he who found the well-hidden, simple solution and showed how P.N.L. could be made to yield its N.T.T. almost without money and without price.

It was one of the happiest moments of his life; certainly the one happy moment since Margaret’s death. It was a great moment, made all the happier by the gladness of his staff, who were present when the proof was made.

In that happiness, he thought:

“Why should not all my N.T.T. be made at St. Margaret’s? The place could be built out of two years’ of the savings made by this new process. We should have all that side of the Works brought into the country, farther from possible air attack; and I could develop my Garden City and my explosives plant together.”

This was much too tempting to resist; he decided that it should be done. He would have the building pushed on, and the people moved in there towards the end of the following Winter, say at the end of February, when every day brought a change for the better in the weather, so that the people could be lured to country life through all a Summer, before the Winter taught them its drawbacks. He meant to make the place a success. He asked his people to meet him in the Hall of the Works, and told them what he hoped to do, if they would support him. He asked them to think it over and let him know what they thought about it; there was no hurry, but he would be glad to hear their views; he wanted only volunteers.

Having had a hard three weeks, he went down to Mullples for the week-end. Meeting the angry ham in Stubbington, he was cut dead by her, which he had not quite expected. In return for this mercy, he resolved to put up big notices on his property where the dwellers at Coombe would pass them ten times a week. The notices should run:

But he was not quite satisfied with the wording; he felt that it could be made a little bitterer; would it not be neater to say:

Somehow, that was a little too prolix; brevity was called for:

He could not resolve upon the wording; he thought of it for a long time, but inspiration did not fall upon him. Anyhow, notices of that kind should go up as soon as he could be satisfied. Meanwhile, a letter came to him from the Rector of Stubbington, asking him to be so very kind as to attend a meeting in Stubbington about the War Memorial. The letter said that the Members of the Committee hoped that he would give them the great benefit of his advice in any question which might arise concerning art and artists.

“Well, if they want my advice,” he commented, “they shall have it. But I’m inclined to think that I shall only fall foul of some more of them.”

As a maker of guns and explosives, he had seen a good deal of the War.

“The great enemy in war is mud,” he used to say. “Mud on the battlefield, and the thicker mud in human minds.”

Though he lived by war and the preparation for war, he loathed it, as the opportunity for the scoundrel. He had lost friends in the War, from several lands, and wished those men to be commemorated by a better Europe, which would be a public confession, that in killing those young men, she had followed cannibal gods. However, Europe had not been bettered; far from it; she had gone farther towards cannibalism.

Still, the young men of Stubbington who had died deserved a memorial, the very best that could be had. He would see that the best should be recommended for them. Somehow he felt that he was foolish to go to the meeting; he would only make more enemies; these people knew nothing of art. He was fond of taking the views of country people on these topics; he went over to the Adventure Inn one day, to find what was thought there about a memorial. Hordiestraw was pointed in his remarks about it.

“Yes,” he said, “I saw they was going to meet and talk about it. It’s just as well they’ve waited till now. Seems to me they’ll be just in time for the next war, if they keep on. What’s the sense of putting up a War Memorial now? The poor chaps know now that they diden end war, like they was told. They’ve made war certain, seems to me; another war, only worse, and not even so much hope in it as there was in the last. Well, if I was to go to the meeting, I’d say the best memorial they could put would be a statue to a statesman; any statesman, they’m all the same; not a pennorth of difference, seems to me; and under it I’d put a poem:

only he’d never see that I meant it sarcastic. He’d think I meant it as praise.”

On the evening appointed, Frampton went to the Committee Meeting, which had been called in the hall of what was called the Guild House. It was a pleasant old Tudor room, with greenish ancient glass in the windows, and a fine timber roof, with carved, painted and gilded rafters and wall-pieces.

He was met at the door by Harold, who introduced him to the people who had already arrived: Lady Susan Drachm, a tough-looking old woman, in a dirty, whitish mackintosh and riding-boots; Miss Paundy, an erect, fresh-coloured handsome old maid, with very beautiful grey hair; Mr. Urch, a grocer and provision dealer; Mr. Ock of Font and Vespers; Mr. Fence, builder and decorator. He had spoken with each of these, when the Rector came in to explain that he was sorry to be late. Harold introduced Frampton to him, and the Rector spoke some words of welcome. Then he took his seat as Chairman and said:

“I don’t think we need wait for Captain Connar-Downs; the hounds have been out at Wicked Hill to-day.”

People smiled and the meeting began. The Rector explained how earlier Committees had been unable to agree, how the matter of the Memorial had been shelved and forgotten, and how it had happened that the matter came to be discussed by them now.

He recapitulated the various suggestions made by the past Committees. They were:

1. A water system for that part of Stubbington known as Budd’s End, which had no water nearer than Joneses Fountain and had to carry from there daily.

2. A window in the church.

3. A stone inscribed with names, to be in the church or in the churchyard.

4. A recreation room.

5. A playing field, with a pavilion and some endowment for the equipment of games.

6. A monument in the Market Place.

7. A cross at the cross-roads outside the town, where the Stubbington Cross had once stood.

8. The figure of an angel, to stand pointing to a list of the fallen in the Market Place.

“Now that we are starting afresh,” he said, “with a new Committee, I hope that we may reach agreement. We have now the great benefits of knowing the Memorials put up elsewhere, and of having with us Mr. Mansell, of Mullples, who has kindly consented to advise us, when necessary, in artistic matters. Mr. Mansell has the name of having done more than almost any living man to encourage living artists, and I have much pleasure in welcoming him here to-night.”

As he ceased speaking, a man who had been following with impatience rose to his feet, and said:

“As a practical builder, may I say a few words? I won’t keep you a minute. I was on the old Committees. I’m one of the few here that was. The old Committees came to nothing because they were not practical; they was anything but practical. There was a lot of talk about artistic and what-not, but sense was the last thing I found among them. First they would have this and then they would have the other, and as a result they got nothing. To give an instance, now, I told them of a reputable firm well used to putting up War Memorials. I won’t mention names, but I might say he’s put up more War Memorials than almost any two firms; that shows the experience they have. You can’t beat experience in a practical question, that’s well known. This firm had offered to put them up a solid masonry plinth, with Britannia weeping, or a model white marble with the names in gold surrounded by a flowerbed, for £287. 10. 0. But Colonel Purple Tittup had said that they didn’t want any of that sort of humbug in Stubbington, but a roll of honour under the colours in the church; but when they looked into it, his roll of honour according to the estimates came to over four hundred pounds. They ought to be advised by that and cut your coat according to your cloth and go by the advice of people who do know what it is they’re dealing with. I hope that now that this question comes to be settled it will be by practical men.”

Another member, who had said “Hear, hear,” several times during this speech, now rose and said, that in one way it was a good thing that Stubbington had waited for so long, for now it could profit from the mistakes of other parishes.

“I’ve been,” he said, “I’ve been about a lot of England, following my business, and I’ve seta a lot of so-called War Memorials. They’ve been two classes in the main, as you might say: the class the people have had some say in, which is what they think their dear ones would have liked, and the class foisted on them by people who can’t be satisfied with what their own country produces, but go bringing in all sorts. They think these things are very artistic, but if you’d heard the complaints I’ve heard about some of those things, complaints which can’t get into the papers, mind you, you’d agree that these matters are best left to practical men.”

Several people came in here; indeed they came in at intervals all through the evening. In a lull, Frampton asked the Chairman if he might speak, and having been asked to do so, said:

“My work has taken me over most of England since the War; I suppose I have seen hundreds of War Memorials. I’ve studied them carefully. I have photographs of hundreds of them, over eleven hundred, certainly; my books of them are here at your service. Most of these Memorials are works of dignity, as all works must be which proceed, as these do, from very deep feeling. Some of the best of them, all the very best of them, are works of art. I do not doubt that you in Stubbington want your Memorial to be among the very best in the land, a real work of art.”

A little, excitable, pale-faced man, with side-whiskers and very bright eyes said that they wanted the best value their money could buy, but it must be what would seem the best value to those whose money it was; they did not want any of this foreign stuff that was coming over, not in Stubbington.

The grocer, who was portly, rosy in the gill, and with a reek of cloves about him, which cloves he chewed to disguise the smell of alcohol, said that the last speaker had hit it.

“Don’t be too artistic; give us something that we can understand, Mr. Mansell,” he said.

Mr. Ock, of Font and Vespers, said, that as many memorials had to be in public ways, the man in the street was the best judge; the plain taste was the best. You could not fool the people. Put up the dozen competing designs, and have a plebiscite, and you’d find the people reject the artistic thing, so-called, in favour of the thing they understood.

“You say you can’t fool the people,” Frampton said. “That is not the whole quotation. The sage said: ‘You can’t fool all the people all the time.’ But the life of any successful politician will show you, as the sage said, that you can fool them all for some of the time. But we are not thinking of fooling the people, but of honouring brave men, who died in misery, so that we might live more quietly, and to do that, we ought to get and give the very best obtainable.”

“Yes, as long as it can be understood,” the grocer said.

It occurred to Frampton suddenly that he had seen this man behind the counter of a big and prosperous store in Stubbington.

“Sir,” Frampton said, “if the Queen were to come into your store and ask to taste some biscuits, would you ask her which biscuits she understood, and then try whether she understood them properly? You wouldn’t do anything of the sort. You’d get the most expensive biscuits in your store, the ones you yourself long to be always eating but which only millionaires can really afford, wouldn’t you now?”

There was a laugh at this; the grocer laughed, too.

“In the long run, that is the only thing that survives, the very best,” Frampton said. “It is the only thing that can move all people all the time. You ask the curator of any gallery or museum what exhibitions are successful; he will tell you, the best exhibitions, the shows of the masters. You here, in Stubbington, want a work of art. A work of art proceeds from the mind of a rare type of man; not from a business firm of men, however experienced, or however practical. The artist may be thirty years ahead of his time; his work may seem strange indeed to one not accustomed to the play and the leap of intellect. This town has had no work of art added to it for two hundred and forty years, when you put up your Corn Exchange. You must be prepared for a bit of a shock, after so long an abstinence. There seems to be unanimity here, that you want a work of art. But am I right about that? Is that decided? Is there no question of a water supply or a playing-field?”

Lady Susan Drachm, who had been watching him with disfavour, put in here, with:

“I didn’t hear that we had decided against a water supply or a playing field. It wasn’t put to the vote.”

“I’m sorry to have mistaken,” Frampton said.

“It hasn’t been put to the vote,” the Rector said, “but I will gladly put it to the meeting, that the field of enquiry may be limited. After all, we have invited Mr. Mansell here to advise us about matters of art, and he must, therefore, have assumed that the field of enquiry had already been limited. Shall I put it?”

“It ought not to be put with so many of the Committee away,” Lady Susan objected. “Not all the people likely to be in favour of the playing field are here yet.”

“They ought to be here,” Mr. Harold said. “We’re the Committee; we’re more than the necessary quorum; we have every right to decide. They’ve all been called to the meeting and haven’t come to it.”

“I quite agree,” several voices said. “We’re the Committee, as we are.”

“I move that we take the vote on it,” Mr. Ock said.

“I second Mr. Ock,” Mr. Edge said.

The Rector looked round the room, put it to the vote of the meeting, that the Memorial should take the form of a work of art, not a water-supply, nor a playing-field. The motion was carried.

“That clears the air a bit,” the builder said. “That’s the first practical thing that’s been done on this Committee since it first sat, along about 1919.”

Lady Susan said nothing, but sat with a hardened face, surveying, now one, now another of the company with dislike.

The door opened; two men came in together, a little, wizened, stooping figure, with keen, darting eyes and shaggy eyebrows, and an elderly man in clerical dress, whose face reminded Frampton of a grizzled lion. The old man flung off his overcoat; he was wearing a dinner-jacket.

“Sorry to be late, Rector,” he said. “Carry on; how far have you got?”

“We’ve just decided to have a work of art, not a water supply or playground.”

“I knew you’d get into trouble without me,” the old man said. “Now you’re for it. A work of art, eh? Poor old Stubbington, condemned to a work of art. Who is going to do the said work? Who’ve you got there? Tom, I suppose. Tom? Why the devil Tom? He knows nothing about it; do you, Tom? Tom’s wife and daughter do all Tom’s work, that’s well known.”

As Tom did not seem to mind, Frampton saw that the old man was a favoured being there. He put him down as a naval officer.

“Who are these newcomers?” he whispered to Harold.

“Admiral Sir Topsle Cringle,” the man whispered, “eighty-four. The other is Reverend Mr. Holyport, retired clergyman.”

“Well, come on, come on,” the Admiral said. “I’m not going to leave Tom in charge of the ship; not if I know it. Who else is here? Why isn’t Budd here? Where’s Bynd? Oh, his leg’s still game. Captain Tocque-Roger said he was coming. I don’t know half the people here and I know all the rest a lot too well.”

“I propose the Admiral should submit a design,” Miss Pauntley said.

“You propose to me?” the Admiral said. “By George, that’s something at my time of life.”

There was a general laugh. Frampton remembered now that he had heard of a very brave thing done by the Admiral as a young lieutenant, while at sea in a squadron in the North Atlantic. He had taken charge of a boat in very wild weather at nightfall, and gone off after a man who had fallen from aloft; had picked him up and had then, with great difficulty, contrived to save the boat. It had been long talked of in the Navy as one of the best bits of work ever done, in the kind of sea then running. The Admiral had sent for him next day and complimented him before the Flagship’s company.

“Now,” the Rector said, “we’ve decided that the Memorial is to be a work of art. Shall we now try to decide where it is to be? When we have decided that, it may be easier to decide what form the work of art should take.”

There was a lull, while people looked from face to face, or drew figures on the paper in front of them.

A man rose, and said that there were many in Stubbington who said that the Memorial ought to be in the parish church. He was sure that many there thought the same, but he hoped he would not be considered slighting to the Church, when he said that many of the men commemorated were not members of the Church. There were many dissenters of different congregations in Stubbington, as well as a good many Roman Catholics. He dared say that half the men serving from Stubbington had not been Churchmen, and that, therefore, a Memorial in the church would be resented by the non-Church members. He was not a Churchman himself, and hoped that the church would not be insisted on.

Mr. Harold said, that in a census of congregations undertaken by his newspaper the year before, it had been shown that rather more people attended the various chapels in the town than the parish church. This quite bore out the statement of the last speaker.

Lady Susan said that the Church was the centre of the community, however much some had strayed from it, and that a window in the church was certainly to most people the most fitting Memorial that could be devised. It might even lead back some of those that had strayed; but it would at least teach them that the Church is established by law and stands for England.

The Admiral said that the only windows in Stubbington church not already stained, were the two in the Lady Chapel, which would never be seen, or hardly ever. The Rector said that there was that great objection. He hesitated a little and added that the late incumbent had at his own expense put up a stone to the memory of communicants who had fallen. This could be seen in the north transept. He felt that the main Memorial should not be in the church.

The grocer said that the best possible site in all Stubbington was the triangular piece at the junction of the roads, the island-site, as it was called. Mr. Ock said that that was the best site. Lady Susan said that it was not so good a site as the Market Square, which was much bigger, clearer, and in all ways better for something that had to be looked at. Mr. Ock replied that the Market Square was too small already on market days for its original purpose as a market. Mr. Edge said that even on other days it was much too small for the numbers of cars that parked there. Any further encroachment on it would be a disaster.

Mr. Holyport suggested that something should be let into the wall of the Corn Exchange, which faced the Market Square. A wreath, surrounding a bronze relief, with a plaque of names below it, would look very well there, and be plainly seen by all in the Market Place.

“But you couldn’t do that with the Corn Exchange,” Frampton said. “It is a masterpiece, by Wren; you could not put an excrescence on Wren’s façade.”

A big man, with a heavy face, said that living people had every right to alter old work according to modern requirements; but that in his view, the Memorial ought to be on the other side of the Market Square, in the middle of the three shops; and that the middle shop should have its face remodelled so as to take it. The Rector said at once that any such scheme would be far more costly than they could afford.

The debate ranged up and down over possible and impossible sites. One or two minor members of the Committee, who had come in late, asked that the question of a water-supply to Budd’s End should be debated; one said that he had the offer of a very good playing-field, which would only have to be levelled a bit to be perfect for any game, as well as being on the river-bank, so that it could be used for swimming. These were told that those points had been ruled out, and the question now was, where the work of art should be put. They raised a protest against this, saying that they represented a large element in Stubbington, who would be indignant to find their wishes overruled. The Chairman said that the matter had been put to the Committee and voted against; it was, therefore, out of order to try to raise it again.

When most of the sites had been proposed, a man from the back of the room, sitting in shadow, said that he could not understand why no one had mentioned the open space in front of St. Hilda’s Chapel in Budd’s End. It was an open space to which hardly anybody ever came and nobody ever bothered about. It was near some of the worst slums in Tatshire, which was saying a good deal, and was, therefore, an ideal spot in which to put a Memorial to men who had died in the hope of bettering the world, and putting an end to war and slums and the competitive commerce which made both. He proposed a statue of Jesus weeping in front of the disused Hilda’s Chapel, Budd’s End. He rose from his place and came down past them. There was tense silence as he passed the Chair. He was a lame man, with only one arm, and face all writhed with suffering. Dick whispered to Frampton that he was one of the survivors from one of the torpedoed hospital ships.

“I don’t think my mates want any memorials from you,” he said, and went out.

Mr. Quart said: “I’m coming along to give you a lift home, Jack,” and went out with him.

There was a murmur of pity and condolence after they had gone. Then someone said that no one had made a better suggestion than the island site at the triangle. It was a good site, and one which nine out of ten of the people of Stubbington passed every day, and one by which all traffic had to go slow. It could hardly be bettered. He knew of no place in Tatshire so good.

There was a pause in the debate here; people fidgeted and whispered.

Frampton said: “You’ve asked me to come here to advise. I’m not a member of the Committee and do not like to speak unless spoken to; but might I ask if anyone has a prejudice against the bridge? It is the main approach to Stubbington. If you had a figure, one on each side, at the approach to the bridge, you would have something unique in England; I mean, the far end of the bridge, where people see the town behind the bridge.”

A speaker waited till the chatter died down a little, and then said that he was sure that he for one welcomed Mr. Mansell as a neighbour, but that Stubbington had always been accustomed to manage her own affairs, and it seemed to him incongruous that a stranger, not a member of the Committee, had been asked in to make suggestions. However, the suggestion had been made, and he would like to suggest to Mr. Mansell, in reply, that the bridge lay outside the town, outside the walls, in a place where not one citizen in fifty would or could see it. It might be agreeable to tourists coming in in motor-cars but the figures there would give everybody of the town the feeling that the War Memorial had been turned out of doors.

Frampton was about to reply to this, when a woman rose. She was a comely woman, with a very clear, ringing voice.

She said that the last speaker had voiced something which had occurred to a good many of them. Stubbington was an old town, well-used to managing her own affairs, and many of her citizens could not understand why one with no association with the district had been called in to advise in this matter, especially as the person in question had done so much to upset the good fellowship and sportsmanship in which we used to live here. The men of this district did not give their lives so that barbed-wire fences might be put round coverts.

She sat down. Frampton looked at her with interest, and was about to reply, when the Admiral struck in with:

“By George, though, I’m all for Mr. Mansell advising if it’s a matter of a work of art. What the devil do we know about works of art here? Look at us, I ask you; me and that old ruffian Tom, and this wise chap here, Harold. We may make runs on a slow wicket, but by George, art’s not our subject.”

He made them laugh at this, and made it unnecessary for Frampton to reply. The Rector said that he was sorry that people were objecting to Mr. Mansell’s presence. He had been invited by the Committee to advise, and had very kindly consented to come there. His suggestion about figures on the bridge might be considered.

Miss Pauntley rose and said that the suggestion about the figures, she supposed that Mr. Mansell meant statues, at the bridge-end ought to be debated. The bridge had been an old one until the last few years, but the old one had been too inconvenient and had been swept away. The new one was very bald and bare. She was there that morning, thinking how bare and dull it looked.

Mr. Quart, who had now returned, said that they weren’t there to decorate bare places, but to commemorate the fallen. There were loud “Hear, hears” at this. He went on to say that he had had, and Stubbington had had some experience of decorating, in the recent past, when the body called the Sons of the pre-Raphaelites got leave to paint the roof of the Guild House where they were sitting. He had never seen such figures of fun. It had cost them pounds in whitewash, covering the things. He was a plain man, and if that was art, he needed no more of it. It was quite true what was said, that figures on the bridge would not be seen. The end of the bridge was outside the town. The town faced the other way, he might say, and not twenty windows of the town could command the view of figures there. As for the natives of the town, they would hardly cross the bridge one day in seven. What plain people wanted was a stone in a public place with a list of the names.

Frampton whispered to Harold:

“Who is the lady who got hot about the barbed-wire?”

Dick whispered: “Mrs. Ruddy Verge.” Frampton nodded, with the mental comment: “J’en suis vierge.”

The attendant, who looked to the cleaning of the room in which they sat, came in with a sheet of paper, on which he had pencilled a telephone message. The Rector called for silence, and read that: Mr. Method-Methodde, the Member for that part of South Tatshire, would be with them in a few minutes. He suggested that the Committee should mark time for those few minutes. The Committee agreed, and broke up into little groups. Frampton moved over to the Rector.

“Tell me, Rector,” Frampton asked, “are you related to the painter that was?”

“Yes, the painter was my uncle, though I never met him,” the Rector said. “He was dead before I was born.”

“Have you any of his work?” Frampton asked.

“I? No,” the Rector said. “I’m one of those brought up to regard my uncle as not quite the sort of uncle that a nephew should be proud of. He may have been a genius, but he was a man of no principle and of unfortunate excess.”

“Well, but Rector,” Frampton said, “I think I must stand up for your uncle. You say he’d no principle. How about the principle of Beauty?”

“What d’you mean by Beauty, Mr. Mansell?” the Rector asked.

“I’m not good at definitions,” Frampton said, “but might we call it, the quality which heightens our sense of life, when perceived in anything?”

“I must say that I am quite unable to find anything of that sort in the work of that dreadful man,” the Rector answered, “I admit that he had talents; the world has decided that; of course, the question whether a man has talent is something which the world decides; the world judges the point and none may appeal. But whatever his talents may have been, they were blinded and nullified by habits of excess.”

“But artists are men of excess,” Mansell said. “They live in overwhelming excitement, and when the world doesn’t give them commissions to keep that excess boiling out into their work all the time, they seek equivalent wherever they can get it. They drink and they fly over the traces, because they are men of excess. Thank heaven they are, I say. I’ve got a little portrait by your uncle. It’s one of the finest things I’ve got. You know, facially you’re rather like him.”

The Rector looked as though he would have his face lifted as soon as he was in funds.

The door opened; Mr. and Mrs. Method-Methodde came in. Mrs. Methodde was ambitious for her husband; she took a lot of pains, but was not intelligent; Mr. Methodde was ambitious for his wife, did not take many pains and was not intelligent. They were frequently photographed together, gardening in their rock-garden. Their nicknames were Ducky and Twee; it did not much matter which was which.

“Oh, Rector,” Mrs. Methodde began, in the gushing manner usual to her, “oh, my dear Rector, can you forgive us for being so disgracefully late. We have broken all the speed limits and all the traffic regulations to get here.”

“I’m so glad you were able to come,” the Rector said. “I think you know all here. We’ve decided to have a work of art, and are now just deciding where to put it. Shall we go on from there?”

“Oh, I am so glad we aren’t too late,” Mrs. Methodde said. “Is this Mr. Mansell of Mullples? Oh, Mr. Mansell, what will you think of us? We have been dying to have you to lunch. But you know what a Member’s life is, don’t you? The House sits and sits, and he is never able to get away. It will be too delicious if you will come to lunch with us sometime.”

As Frampton judged that he had been avoided by them of set purpose, he bowed, but said nothing, except that it would be delicious.

“Oh, I am so glad that you have decided to have a work of art,” Mrs. Methodde cried to the Committee. “And now, will you let us take our places. Admiral, I want you to let me sit next you, and Twee the other side of you.”

As they took their places, Frampton produced a portfolio. The Rector said that they had better get on with the next point, where the Memorial was to go. They decided, in a few minutes, that by much the best place was the triangular island-site.

“We’ve decided on a work of art, and we’ve decided on the place for it,” the Rector said. “Now the real debate begins. What are we to put up? I have to tell you that the sum of money at our disposal, three hundred and sixty pounds odd, has been increased since we came into this room by an anonymous donor—please do not ask me for the name; it must be kept secret—to four hundred pounds. For that sum we can do much.”

“I wonder,” Frampton said, “I wonder, Rector, if I might be allowed to say a few words here, in my momentary capacity as adviser?”

“Certainly; do,” the Rector said.

Frampton rose with his portfolio.

“I have here,” Frampton said, “a portfolio of some fifty or sixty of the best of the smaller War Memorials in this country. It excludes all the social service memorials, such as water supplies or playing fields, but includes some of what you might call garden shrines.”

He produced his portfolio, which was a remarkable collection.

“How did you get this book?” Mrs. Methodde asked. “I mean, is it published? I haven’t seen it anywhere.”

“It isn’t published,” he said. “But the country was stirred by its losses in the War and showed deep feeling in many of its designs. I took the trouble to collect photographs of all that I could hear of, and when the result seemed good, I went down to see the place and had good photographs taken. Wherever I could, I learned the cost of each Memorial; the figures are very interesting to me; so much good work was given free. I have a couple of other portfolios at home, not quite so good as these, but good.”

“After all,” Lady Susan said, as she sniffed above the designs, “four hundred pounds isn’t quite the Bank of England. We have to cut our coat according to our cloth. We can’t afford anything out of the way.”

“Why not?” Frampton asked. “There are scores of young geniuses in this land, eager to give of their best.”

“We don’t want genius in Stubbington,” Mr. Quart said. “Thank God, we’re plain folk in Stubbington.”

“You know them better than I do,” Frampton said, “but in this case the plain folk are not quite plain folk, but sorrowing humanity; they demand the very best that they can get, in memory of the extremity of their loss.”

“I must say that I agree with Mr. Quart,” a member said. We don’t want any medical students coming round our War Memorials with green paint, as they say they do in London. We want an art that we can understand. It seems to me, that if we have a local War Memorial, we ought to employ local talent. I’m a builder myself, and it don’t beseem me to push my own wares; but a lot of local men could put up a simple stone with the names on and tidy it all round a bit, and have something over for a supper to the poor on Armistice Night. All these memorials in this book, Mr. Mansell, are a lot above us.”

“In what way above? I don’t quite see.”

“They aren’t the sort of thing people would like to have about.”

“But people do like to have them about. In some villages and towns they’re very proud of them. In one or two, they have even found that their War Memorial has given them a kind of fame. People come there from distances to see the Memorial. Just look at page thirty-three in that book, will you? That’s it—the Memorial at Naunton Crucis, a little place, with a very fine village cross, one of the best still standing. They got young Dick Pilbrow to do a marble for the great spring of water just opposite the Cross. That marble with the low relief is the result. It loses a full half of its beauty in a photograph; but you go over to Naunton and look at it. It’s only forty-odd miles. If it doesn’t take your breath away, I’ll be sorry for you. People go from all over the Continent to see that marble. It made young Pilbrow famous all over the world. He’s in America now, doing a fountain for one of their colleges.”

“Yes, but I don’t think that Stubbington would quite approve of marble figures with quite so few clothes,” Mrs. Methodde said. “Four hundred pounds may not be very much, but it should be enough to provide the figures, if we must have figures, with decent suitings. After all, we insist upon it, even at seaside resorts, and I feel that art ought not to have a lower standard in these matters than the ordinary rank and file of everyday people.”

Frampton looked at her with a kindling eye; he restrained his instinct to go for her. He heard comment of a slighting kind as the view of the Naunton fountain went down the table.

“Well, we don’t want anything like that,” was the most favourable remark which came to him.

“I want to add,” Frampton said, “that Pilbrow gave his work on that marble for love of the job. It was his first big chance to show what was in him; and luckily it led to other big chances being given to him. He has, therefore, grown to his capacity. Think how glad you would be, if you could set free another Pilbrow. It is all in that one phrase: ‘Setting free.’ Nations don’t alter. Men have the same kind of art power, year after year, century after century. Only in one century they will turn the power to building and decorating cathedrals, and in another to designing petrol pumps and mascots for motors. The power is there. All that is needed is a discrimination, and then a wise encouragement.”

“I don’t call it much encouragement,” Lady Susan said, “to put up a marble fountain for nothing.”

“It was just Life itself, he told me, after three years of neglect and starvation.”

“Well,” the Admiral said, “this fountain is all very well for Naunton Crucis, as they have that great spring of water there; the fountain suggests itself. I’m afraid that nothing of this kind would suit our triangle at the cross-ways. Tom here suggests a stone with the names, and some sort of flower-bed with evergreens. Does that seem a fair proposal?”

There was general approval of the stone with names and a sort of flower-bed. It would be the very thing; and in the space around it people could lay wreaths. Mr. Fence and Mr. Ock said that a plain brick plinth with marble facings was the sort of thing, surrounded by a grass plot fenced with chain swags. This was welcomed by most. The Rector asked Frampton what he, as adviser, thought of it.

Frampton said: “I have seen a great many Memorials of the kind; nobody would want to look at one of them a second time. I’m all for trying to make a Memorial here that people will come to from great distances to see. Why not have a bronze figure, or a marble upon your plinth? You know that a town in France or Italy, of half the size of this, would have a bronze or a marble, done with grace and go, too, as a matter of course. We are richer and, in many ways, wiser than any generation of Englishmen who have lived here before us. But we are leaving less to future ages than any generation. The Middle Ages built you and left you their church and chapel. The Tudors left you the Jennynges Almshouses. The Jacobeans left you Tom’s Dovecot. Charles the Second left you the Market Building. The Georgians left you the main body of your town. But what are you leaving to those who follow you, but some underground drains and overhead pylons? Here you have a chance to get busy, rout out a genius and lay great bases for posterity; yes, I say, really great. It only needs an act of will.

“Why should you not make this Memorial the very finest one in England? You come to it late. You can profit by all that have failed and all that have succeeded. You know now what to avoid, and what to better if you can. You, Admiral, you wouldn’t let your ship be beaten in any manœuvre or any point of smartness. You, Mr. Methodde, won’t let it be said that North Tatshire Memorials are better worth a visit than those in your constituency. Why not let me get busy for you and get a few designs prepared? It won’t cost you anything; it won’t commit you to anything. If you don’t like any of them, I can try again. I know that I know men who would do memorable work for you.”

He spoke to deaf ears and doubting minds. A member rose and said that most practical men had had experience of artists. He had seen some of their work, which papers who ought to have known better had cracked up. He would be sorry to see any of such work in Stubbington. It looked more like raving lunatics’ work than the work of sane men, if you asked him. He hoped that plain men in Stubbington would not be led away by talk about art into making their old town ridiculous. He had seen a so-called portrait of a lady done by one of these artists. It was said by the papers to be a piece of mordant truth, whatever that might mean. It had made him and his wife feel sick all afternoon. He hoped old Stubbington would show plain English common sense in this matter. There was a good deal of applause.

This was an opportunity for Mrs. Methodde, who rose to say her say. She had spoken a good deal, or rather, had cooed frequently. Someone had told her that her way of speaking had a caressing quality that was very persuasive. This had confirmed her in her belief that she was the one to woo an audience to vote for Methodde and English Common-sense.

“While we are all debating and declaiming,” she cooed, “might I tell the Committee of a Memorial which I saw in Normandy last summer? I was motoring with my husband, and stopped for tea at an inn at a little town; you know those charming French inns, with the faint smell of cider. It was in the Place, and just opposite was l’Église. After tea, I said to my husband, we must just look into l’Église; there may be some old stained-glass in it; so we went in. It was very damp and felt as though it wasn’t much used, but in the Lady Chapel there were two drapeaux, the tricolores, of course, and underneath, the most beautiful War Memorial I have ever seen. It was a big marble reading-desk of a dark marble. On the desk was a big marble book open. I suppose the book was as big as a big atlas. It was all white marble and made with a roll or ripple in it exactly like the roll that you see in the leaves of an open book. The leaves were inscribed in black with the names of the fallen, and all those who had been décorés were in gold. It was so simple and so dignified. It was a book of fame. I was simply struck all of a heap, I don’t mind confessing it, I couldn’t help saying: ‘There is a book who runs may read.’ I haven’t seen anything like it in any English church. But now that we are a Committee to settle what Stubbington is to have, I simply have to tell you how I felt. My husband was as much impressed as I was. I said to him this morning: ‘There is your Memorial for you.’ Only have it in the open street, not a dark chapel, and place the desk so that all who read the roll will have to kneel to do so.”

“You mean, in fact, that the Memorial should be a kind of sheltered prie dieu?” the Rector said.

“Yes. Something simple, like a church lych-gate, to screen the volume from rain or snow; then the desk inside the shelter, with a slab on which people would kneel.”

“I think Mrs. Methodde’s suggestion is the very thing we’re all groping for,” Mr. Ock said, “if I may say so.”

Mr. Quart and Mr. Tom spoke in support. The Admiral seemed perplexed. Mr. Methodde was in deep whispered discussion with Mr. Holyport, about some other matter connected with Jennynges’ Charity. The devil ever at Frampton’s elbow, now gave him a jog. It was wanton of the devil and weak of Frampton to yield to him without at least a struggle, but he was angry with Mrs. Methodde, her person, her voice, her manner, her clothes and her sense of beauty.

“Do you remember,” he asked, “if there was a marble velvet cushion under the book?”

“No, there wasn’t,” she said, “I’m sure of that. Do you recognise the place from my description? But I’m quite sure there was no cushion. A cushion would have spoiled it, I think; don’t you? It would have made it unsimple, don’t you think? And that is what I love so; simplicity.”

The devil gave Frampton another jog, to which he responded.

“I’m surprised there wasn’t a cushion,” he said; “a white velvet marble cushion with dints in it. The roll on the pages made me expect a cushion, with a dog or a lion or something curled up on it, or weeping or something.”

The words fell upon a room which somehow had fallen silent and attentive to receive them. He was gazing at Mrs. Methodde with relish of the effect of his sarcasm. She was not very quick at seeing what he meant. She was the Member’s wife, sitting, as she supposed, among friends, among whom her opinions counted. Was this interloper, the dreadful gun-man from Mullples laughing at her?

The Admiral said: “Well, that seems the best suggestion yet: a sort of praying desk, with a book of names. And a marble book wouldn’t wear out in a hurry.”

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t,” Frampton said. “Why not a real book, with metal pages, bearing the names engraved upon them; and get the Rector and Choir to come once a week to turn the page, with a prayer or a hymn. They do something of the sort in one or two places; and the effect is very noble.”

“In the open air the pages would rust, and in this climate the Rector and Choir would get wet, two times out of three,” Mr. Quart said.

“The book is to be screened,” Frampton said, “and the Rector and Choir could come in mackintoshes.”

“I’m afraid the Stubbington boys would soon have the movable pages out of the covers,” Mr. Tom said. “Boys will be boys.”

“Boys will be very decent fellows,” Frampton said, “if it is put to them to be so. It would be quite easy to hinge the metal plates beyond the strength of boys.”

“As to that, sir,” a builder said, “you forget that slabs of zinc or copper would have a very mean effect.”

“I did not mention zinc or copper,” Frampton said. “I said metal, meaning memorial bronze.”

“Not many in Stubbington would know what that is, sir,” the man said. “They’d think it was something out of the ironmonger’s shop. But marble is a precious stone to them. They know marble costs money; and they know it’s the thing for graves and that; a bit of white marble that gleams.”

The building party muttered: “Hear, hear.” They knew that it was the thing for graves.

“I wonder, Rector,” the Admiral said, “if we could put this matter to the vote and then I could get away. That is, if it has to come to the vote.”

“I think we could put it to the vote,” the Rector said, looking round the table. “Proposed by Mrs. Methodde, that the Memorial should take the form of a screened prie dieu, bearing a book of the names . . .”

“A marble book of the names,” Mr. Quart said.

“A marble book, sir,” the others added.

“We could discuss the form of the book later,” the Rector said. There came a loud cry of “Marble,” from all over the room. “Bearing a marble book of the names,” the Rector amended. “Anybody second the proposal?”

Yes, a lot of people seconded the proposal.

“Seconded by Admiral Sir Topsle Cringle,” the Rector said. “Those in favour? Contrary? Carried. The Committee decides, therefore, that Mrs. Methodde’s scheme be adopted.”

“Thankee,” the Admiral said. “Now I can get away. Evening Billie; evenin’, Member; ’night, Rector.”

He rose with the alertness of a young man, and was out of the room in a twinkling.

“I wonder,” Frampton said, “if I may have my book of photographs. I’ll say good night, Rector. I’ll have no truck with your marble book. It would be a mean design, even in a bathroom. You’d do better to have the pages of the Army pay-rolls, with the poor chaps’ names crossed out. Who is going to design your marble book? May I ask that?”

He had meant to go, but a thought had struck him, and he waited to hear what they said.

“I’m sure that Mr. Ock, with his wide experience, could put us on to a good ecclesiastical and memorial firm, who would do that for us,” Mr. Quart said, “or if not, Mr. Brix would, I’m sure.”

“A good ecclesiastical and memorial firm,” Frampton said. “Who will do a marble book for you. And that is the utmost you can do, in the way of grateful feeling, for the chaps who went west in the War. Supposing an angel were to come here from Paradise; you needn’t look shocked, he won’t come; only suppose that he did come and that you had to show him round. Well, you show him your school, and let him have a look at the drains and the city dump, and then you show him your marble book. He will say: ‘What in wonder is this?’ You will say: It’s a Memorial to our friends who were killed in the War. Of course, we didn’t take any trouble about it. We were just a Committee who handed it over to a good ecclesiastical and memorial firm who does that kind of thing. It’s real marble; cost a pot of money; see the gleam there; only marble gleams that way; the sort the toffs have on their tombs, that is.’ Can’t you see the kind of thing you’ll get? And the kind of fathead who’ll unveil it, and the kind of tosh he’ll say?”

He was enjoying his innings, but wanted to be gone from among them. Mr. Quart gave him a chance to go with a fine curtain. Mr. Quart was a big man with a bullying manner.

“I must say,” he said, “Stubbington has shown her sense in turning her back on what’s artistic for a good concrete proposal.”

“You’ll get a concrete Memorial, if you don’t watch your contractors,” Frampton said.

He went out on this, noting as he went a professional smile on the faces of the building party. He came away, raging at being asked to advise a Committee of this sort, at having gone to it, and at being so treated by it. He felt, that he had been an ass to go to it, and that now the reading-desk would go up in the triangle, and everybody would think that he had advised it.

“Golly, it’ll be a terror, that desk,” he thought, “and the swine’ll print, that the Committee had the benefit of Mr. Mansell’s advice. I’ve made a few more enemies,” he said, “but I enjoy making enemies here; I’ll make a few more in a day or two.”

In this, he spoke truth; he did. That winter was a sad season for him, because it made him feel the emptiness of his life without Margaret. He walked out, to look down over Spirr from the top of the Waste above it. He thought of her with great sadness.

“Still,” he thought, “something of your wish lives on still; that is your wood, and the birds there live by your mercy for them. I’ve stopped the beastly hunter on all this side of the country; and I’ll put some of your ideas into practice when I get the new gun being made here.”

He walked home feeling frustrated. He had Tim up to the house to dinner that night and plied him with the drinks he loved, so that Tim, going back to his lodge in Spirr, mistook his way, and was found in the outskirts of Stubbington shortly after midnight, singing that:

As he was very rude to the policeman who tried to direct him, he passed the rest of the night in a Stubbington police cell. Frampton had him out of it, soon after breakfast. He was not well pleased with Tim, but knew that it was his own fault.

“You’ve got no head,” he said. “You ought not to drink these things when your head is like that. You’ve got about as much head for alcohol as my maiden aunt has for lust.”

His morning had been spoiled by the expedition to Stubbington; he had found the town already gathering in the market-place for the meet of the fox-hounds, which always took place there on Boxing Day. About two hundred people had gathered there to see the meet when he arrived. Before he left, another hundred had come in; some forty riders had mustered. He was, by this time, well known to the fox-hunting set; they recognised him, as he drove slowly through the press with Tim. They began by pointing him out as the chap who had closed Spirr and Tittups. One or two of the young men began to boo him. Then one, who was more outspoken than his fellows, rode up to the car and called:

“Yah, ye damn spoil-sport. You ought to be ducked in the damn mill-pond.”

“You go threaten the fox,” Frampton said, stopping his car and switching off the engine. “That’s about all you’re fit for. But don’t you threaten me, or you’ll find yourself in queer street.”

“Yah,” the man said.

Half a dozen others, thinking that there might be fun, rode up and also called: “Yah”: “Who closed Spirr”: “Dirty gun-maker”: “Son of a Stanchester pie-man”: “Hot pies”: “Nice puppy pies; nice as Mother makes ’em.”

It was quite good-humoured, and a great delight to the crowd. A policeman shoved through the throng and reproved Frampton for stopping in the crowded street.

“What are you blocking the road for?” he said. “Can’t you see you’ve all these cars behind you, wanting to get by? Move on. You ought to know better than to stop like that.”

Frampton said nothing, but set the car going. The riders laughed and booed; the crowd gave derisive cheers.

Frampton drove out of Stubbington pretty fast. When he reached the outskirts, he accelerated. He met a good many riders on very fresh horses coming in to the meet. Some of these lifted their hands for him to slow as he passed. He did not slow for any of them; he whirled past, and enjoyed the image in his mirror of the horses careering across the road, with the riders clinging to their necks. About a couple of miles from Stubbington, he met the hounds, and gave them the same measure. He rejoiced exceedingly to hear the oaths of the hunt servants as he passed them.

“Damn you,” he muttered. “Get off the roads into the fields if you want to come hunting in this twentieth century.”

A mile farther on, he passed the blood-red car, in which, as he knew, the Tilter fellow went to the meets. He saw the Tilter and his wife, and spat towards them, but the gesture was lost upon them.

Before lunch that day, he walked up to his new purchase on the Waste, for a quiet hour with the trial piece sent to him from the Works. This was a light, sporting model of his new gun, No. 123, with some clips of his new explosive, Mansellite, in practice charges. The gun took clips of a hundred charges, and even when loaded weighed less than three pounds. He had tried it at the Works, and had had no doubt that it was a marvellous weapon. He walked up to the Waste with it, to a gulley with high ground at its end, which he had long noted as a trial range. Against this high ground, he fixed his target-cards; he then passed a happy hour shooting and making notes. He judged that the gun needed two or three adjustments, which would add to its weight, but that even without these it was the best weapon in the world.

“This time I’ve got it,” he said to himself; “not its semblance, but itself. This’ll do the trick. Here go ten pounds off the load the P.B.I. will have to carry in the next war. Still, I suppose,” he added, “the hardy Annuals will make them carry their tombstones instead, to maintain that spirit of subservience, without which no hardy Annual can misdirect a war.”

He was always careful to keep one cartridge undischarged before turning home. He did so now. He had often found some tempting target on his way home, some fine coloured leaf or tree-boss.

“One shot on my way home,” he said, “then lunch.”

He saw nothing to shoot at, but strolled along, thinking of things which might be done to improve the weapon. The morning had given him a new interest in his work.

“This will be the gun of the future,” he said. “There can be no doubt of that.”

He was walking home thus, late for lunch but very happy, by way of the lake-head, when he heard the cry of hounds away to the south-east. Three or four cries came as though hounds were on to something but doubtful of it; he heard a distant horn and, in the stillness, a huntsman’s cheer.

“There the swine are,” he growled, “checked on the clay there. Get down and smell for yourselves, why don’t you, instead of leaving it to the nobler beasts?”

However, they neither heard nor obeyed; the horn and the cheering continued; then presently hounds spoke to something, were cheered to it, and seemed to make it good. They had hit off the line; they broke into cry, and were in an instant away down-hill.

“They’ll not get into this estate again,” Frampton said; but remembered, as he spoke, that the fencing along his southern and south-eastern borders had not been made, as he called it, “skunk-proof.”

He was at that moment near the end of the lake where Margaret had first caught sight of it. He was looking towards the open southern side of the valley. As he looked, he saw hounds coming over the brow of the slope; they were coming fast, with little whimpers, with their heads up and their sterns straight. The huntsman appeared, rather on their right, watching them intently. Almost at that instant, Frampton saw their fox coming straight towards him. He had been a fine, big fellow, that morning, when pushed from his covert, but he had gone eight miles since then, and was done for now. He was draggled, plastered with mud, so wet that he seemed all skin and bone, with his back hunched up in the middle, and his filthy brush trailing. Some memory of the lake may have been in his reeling brain. He may have had a wild duck there, perhaps, and remembered reeds which might shelter him; but he was tottering on his feet, his tongue was out like a wet flag, not like a lancer’s pennon. He might get to the reeds and sink there, but wherever he sank he would never get up again. The hounds were romping down the valley a hundred yards away, Frampton said to himself:

“The swine will kill him here. Well, they shan’t do that.”

He did not stop to think of consequences. Just as the huntsman urged his hunter up the bank on to Frampton’s land, Frampton shot the fox dead, with his last cartridge, rushed to it, and flung the corpse far out into the lake. The leading hounds ran to the lake margin after it, and there threw up.

“Take your damned dogs out of this,” he called to the huntsman. “Call your damned dogs out of it.” The hounds were round him. The huntsman was swearing at him and at the hounds. From all the valley-side, horsemen and horsewomen and children on ponies appeared. Annual-Tilter was there. “Get off this estate,” Frampton said. “I’ve shot your fox. Clear out of it and get another. Get to hell out of it, the lot of you.”

A big man, with a tough face, called:

“Horsewhip the swine. Let’s duck the mucker. Come on, you, let’s duck him.”

“No threats,” Frampton said. “Any man who touches me’ll die.”

“What d’you mean by shooting our fox?” the Annual-Tilter called. “What d’you mean, sir?”

“What do I mean, you bun-headed ape?” Frampton said. “The poor thing was run off his legs and on my land, and therefore mine to do what I choose with. I shot him out of mercy. I’m only sorry someone can’t do as much by you.”

There were thirty riders, all hot, blowsy, fuming, angry and raging. Each one of the thirty behaved like one of a pack; even the children called in shrill voices that he was a swine and a spoil-sport; the women were not backward; the men cursed him. One of the women, with a very clear, hard, penetrating voice, the one who had spoken at the Meeting, called:

“Do you fellows call yourselves men, that you can’t horsewhip him within an inch of his life?”

“No, madam,” Frampton called to her, “they don’t call themselves men. They know that I’ve got a gun, and am pretty good at using it. They are only fox-hunters. But, Golly, they can chase a fox to death, if all his earths are stopped.”

Bynd appeared at this instant; he had not seen and did not know what had happened; he had had a fall and was covered with mud, but in some swift, human way, native to him, he judged the situation.

“Come, come,” he said, “you know we mustn’t hunt this line. Come on, Master; come on, Bill. Get going. Never mind what has happened; we’re not wanted here and have no business here. Take hounds out of it, Bill.”

Bill swore under his breath: “We don’t want any Christian religion with a fox-shooter,” but he trailed his thong and called the hounds, who followed. He led them at a fast trot towards Weston Mullples, and the riders, with a few choice remarks to Frampton, went after them. Frampton followed them to the gap, with a few choice retorts. He had enjoyed the scene enormously. He had faced the lot and cowed the lot, and all with an empty gun, which had lain at the ready. He had publicly called Annual-Tilter “a bun-headed ape,” which exactly described him; he had put a poor fox out of his misery, and had won all along the line.

Going home late for lunch, he saw that the news of the scene had come somehow before him. Mrs. Haulover and the maids were looking at him very curiously. Well, let them look, he thought.

“Look, first, at this gun,” he said. “You can bear witness, that all the cartridges in this clip have been fired.”

During that afternoon, the tale of the shooting of the fox went up and down the land; it roused a pretty storm in all that part of Tatshire; nothing else was talked of. The gun-fella at Mullples, whose father had sold cats’-meat-pies in Stanchester, had held up the enure Hunt with a gun, had threatened them all with death, had shot at the Master, and had killed the fox.

Frampton knew that the case would reach the police; he, therefore, drove in to Stubbington Police Station that afternoon, taking his uncleaned gun and the salved corpse of the fox. He made an exact statement of the occurrence, and was able to prove, by one of his workmen, who had been ditching within earshot, that only one shot had been fired and no threat made. Having thus cleared the ground, he waited for the next move. No move came from the other side. He knew that he was loathed by every sportsman in the district; but he took pleasure in that. He liked being loathed; it showed him that he had made them squirm. He had certainly done that.

Some of the charitable said that he was a clever man, perhaps, but quite deranged, because he hadn’t been raised to the peerage. The less charitable said that he was simply a bounder, who behaved like the pie-seller he was. The few, who had read the science gossip in their weekly paper, said that he had an inferiority complex, “which, of course, would make him behave like that.” One knew for a fact that he was sickening for G.P.I. The main body of people said, “The chap’s a bounder,” and wished that one of his beastly guns would go off by accident and blast him into eternity.

He let it be known now that he was going to stablish some of his plant on the Waste. Rolly’s drawings had been shown and applauded. The members of the Hunt wailed and swore that this damned crank and madman was going to ruin the whole countryside. However, he knew by this time that they were not a very efficient body. Long before their agitation had got beyond savage scowls at railway stations, and words flung at him in the market-place, he had something of the settlement in the course of building; but the building was preluded by such a fencing of the property, that the Hunt was barred from one great area over which it had roved at will for six generations of sportsmen.

Late one night, at the winter’s end, just as he reached his bedroom, the telephone rang. He heard the voice of Miss Pilbrow, his excellent, steely, glittering secretary in London, with her carefully-picked, deliberate speech, which he had never known ruffled.

“Yes,” he said, “is that you, Miss Pilbrow? What is it?”

“It’s about King Faringdon, the sculptor. He’s just been here, asking to see you.”

“Rather late at night to visit a spinster,” he said. “What does he want?”

“He’s in great distress. His bronzes have been turned down.”

“What? The two he was doing for Snipton Town Hall?”

“Yes.”

“Turned down? What d’ye mean? That the Town Council won’t have them?”

“Yes. They refuse them. They say they aren’t the things they expected, and they want something more cheerful”

“I say, say that again.”

“They want something more cheerful.”

Frampton put down the receiver, so that he might swear away from the lady’s delicate, but by now accustomed ear.

“And Faringdon’t off his head?” he said.

“Well: yes. He’s nearly frantic, really. He came to you to ask if you could buy the drawings or something. He’s been counting on the payment for the bronzes and is absolutely broke, he says, without it.”

Frampton knew pretty well what kind of mood Faringdon would be in, and the state of his finances.

“Are you in touch with him?” he asked. “Is he there still?’”

“No, he’s gone now. I’ve been trying at intervals to get you for the last two hours. He’s gone to his studio, or at least he said he was going.”

“Damn,” Frampton said. Then he called to Miss Pilbrow: “Is Joe up, or has he gone to bed?”

“Gone to bed.”

“Tell Joe to get up, and go round to Faringdon’s studio at once. He can get a taxi. Give him some money. But he’s to go at once, the sooner the quicker, pronto and muy muy pronto. Take a letter from me; ‘Dear King, I’m sorry Snipton is so mad, but one man’s folly may be a wise man’s gain. May I have the refusal of your Bronzes? I’m sorry I was out when you called. Miss Pilbrow will arrange matters with you.’ Tell Joe to take that and to wait at King’s studio till he’s given the letter into King’s hand and seen him read it. If King isn’t at the studio, and anyone can tell him where King is, he’d better go on to that place in the taxi. Get Joe off at once.”

Miss Pilbrow got Joe off at once. Frampton remained at his lamp, reading ghost stories, for another hour, when Miss Pilbrow rang up again, to say that Joe had found King Faringdon at Julian’s, and that he sent his best thanks.

“Glad you got me at last,” Frampton said, “and I’m glad Joe got him. I’ll see King in a day or two, tell him. Good night.”

As he turned over in bed, at about four the next morning, it occurred to him that the two bronze figures, the Female Griefs, as Faringdon called them, would be the very things for the ends of the parapets of Stubbington Bridge. Why not offer them to Stubbington? They had been designed, at an enlightened man’s suggestion, for the Snipton Town Hall. The enlightened man had been turned out of office, and his plans killed. They were not cheerful things. One represented bereaved wifehood, the other bereaved virginity. These two heroic figures, the Andromache and Polyxena of the Great War, would move men for generations to come. To be sure, there might be better sites for them than Stubbington bridge, but none so near his home, and none, in London, so beautiful. Half asleep as he was, he muttered:

“I’ll get at the clerk of the Council here to-morrow, and make the offer. It’ll probably make me a few more enemies, but the bridge-end will be a fine place for the two figures, and Faringdon ought to be pleased.”

He went into Stubbington to see the Clerk of the Town Council about the Bronzes. The clerk was an active and pleasant man, a good golfer and amateur actor, but not very sure what Bronzes might be. He gave Frampton the impression of believing them to be basins. However, the course of action was plain: if Frampton would write a brief description of the (“what was it you said the things were to be?”), and make a formal offer to the Council, why, then, it would go before the Council on Monday, and he would most probably be asked to come to see them on the following Monday.

As he foretold, so it was; Frampton was bidden to the Council.

He was there in good time, and hung about in a passage under the curious eye of a charwoman who was mopping down the stairs, after the passing of the boots of the Council. Presently the Clerk came out and asked him to come into the meeting-room. It was a big, well-lit room, with a bright fire burning. There was a long table covered with green baize; at this the Council sat; some whom he knew, and three strangers. On the walls were paintings of deceased royalties. George the Fourth was the most recent. The Charles the Second might be by Lely, Frampton thought. The town of Stubbington had sheltered Charles on his flight to the sea; this may well have been a royal gift.

The Chairman of the Council was one nicknamed “Old Bert Fist”; he was not known to Mansell, save by repute; tales of him had been told to him during the week. He was a slow, beery, popular and very kindly man, who ran the big general store called the “Stubbington Stump.”