A walking gentleman, a novel

CHAPTER I ‘‘ The Duke of Highlow has sent us a cheque, Jack.”

” H’m, his delicate way of presenting you with his autograph, I suppose. He knows you collect?”

” Won’t you come and look at the presents that came in yesterday?”

” Please excuse me, Sally. I know I shall have to see them some day.”

” No compulsion. Jack.”

Lord Beiley was too polite to contradict, but it was depressingly apparent to him that a man who has allowed himself to drift within twenty-eight hours of wedlock is not a free agent.

” What’s the matter. Jack? You seem very down.”

” Unusually so?”

” Awfully unusually.”

“Then I was mistaken; I thought I was just on a dead level with everything else.”

“Thanks for everything else.”

“ If you’ll excuse me. I’ll take a stroll through the park until luncheon.”

Lord Beiley turned from Lady Sarah Sallis, and passed from the tempered light of that great hall through the open door and out into the broad sunshine, with as despondent an unexpectancy as though he had been proceeding from one prison to another. Down the wide

I balustraded steps he went with the even unelastic tread of unutterable boredom. A few slow paces across gravel and the shade of a great avenue of lime-trees came between him and the sun. Yet with a noble generosity they returned part of the light they took in broad shimmerings, delicate siftings, quivering flashes, that made the blades of the grass he trod seem things as airy as their own leaves that hung between him and the sky. If he had but seen.

It was Whit-Monday and the first day of June, when according to the almanac and proverbial wisdom all things are in tune. At least the songs of the birds were; the merry untiring roundelay of the chaffinch, the silvery tinkle or slender piping of the tits, the full-throated repetitions of the thrush, the poetic ecstacy of the lark, the far-off uncompetitive fluting of the blackbird. On either hand stretched the great undulating park, browsed by herds of deer, red and fallow. The sky visible but brokenly adown the mile-long avenue was in flawless gradation, from the robbed blue of the sun’s proximity to the hazeless violet of the horizon. But to Lord Beiley, if he heard and if he saw, the sky was of one colour with the clod, the songs of the birds to one tune with his own sombre ponderings.

On the morrow he was to marry his old friend Lady Sarah Sallis, only child of the Earl of Hexgrove, the woman whom he liked best. He was not in debt, his liver was all right, he had never done a mean thing, he was not bitten by ambition, not depressed by obscurity; his vices were as inconspicuous as his virtues; he had neither done nor undone, neither failed nor attempted. And yet — and yet — if he could quietly have ceased to be, that moment, without the doctor, without newspaper impertinences or posthumous fuss, he would have welcomed the lapse even into nonentity as scarcely more arid and not so sorry as such an existence. And Lady Sally? Well, he had made his will so far as he could in her favour. And what more would she have?

He kept on walking, chiefly because to him who stands thought comes with the more persistent attack. As one moves even in the solitude of a great avenue there is at least the crackle of a leaf or dry twig underfoot to claim the ear; or there is a mole-hill in the way, some little inequality that catches the toe and makes a momentary interruption of the brain’s dull sequences; which in Lord Beiley’s case would have been sad had they not been so altogether commonplace, passionless and selfish.

He passed under the great arch of the gateway and out into the public road. On the rising ground before him widely spread the new red houses, the spires and tall smoking chimneys of the great manufacturing town. He might have seen them before, at large from the terrace, by glimpses through the trees, but he did not; now he could only avoid the sight entirely by turning his back upon it, as he did. He walked in the opposite direction, sauntered, lounged, crawled; it is hard to hit upon a word vacuous enough to express the slow futility of his motions. The caterpillar crawls, but with an imperative purpose; the exquisite lounges, but with much self-enjoyment; lovers saunter, but to make the most of the sunshine. Merely to say that he went would be colourless enough but too businesslike. Well then, he crept — though even crept has a furtive superfluous colour of its own — crept under the park wall. A factory chimney peering over the brow of the hill, a villa staring redly spick-and-span from among trees of much older growth, might have proved to him that by turning his back on the town he had not quite done with it; but he was sensible of nothing outward but the annoyance of the heat and dust.

Nevertheless there was somewhere, somehow, somewhy, a cessation of that monotonous dead-alive alternation of left foot and right; for when he came out of himself he found that he had stopped, that he was looking at something, that he was being looked at. On the dusty road just in front of him was a brake full of people, a shabby dusty vehicle, horsed by four unmatched screws, packed with dusty perspiring men and women, all evidently interested in themselves, their surroundings and him. Their easy laughter, the content that buttered their faces as with a sweat, their enjoyment of the dust and other inconveniences, their acceptance of noise for music and good-will for wit, were doubtless enviable, but the half-awakened indiscriminate supercilious gaze which he gave them back was too unshaped to deserve so definite an epithet as that of envy. Nevertheless it was evidently supposed by their good-natured self-satisfaction to be indicative of a longing to be of the party.

“ An’ why not, matey?” shouted one of them.

It was taken up by a chorus of treble, tenor and bass.

“ Coom wee’s an’ welcome.”

” Mek a bit o’ room o’ your side.”

‘‘ Five an’ six, includin’ meat tea an’ speechifyin’.”

” Hutch up a bit furder, missis.”

‘‘ Now, mester, if yo’re coomin’.”

“Shew yersen limber. Gie’s yer ’and. Toomp in.”

“ Hooray !”

“ Now, Sam Meldrum, whip up them theer thoroughbred cattle o’ yourn to their three mile a hour gallop.”

Before he had balanced a “ would ” against a “ would not,” he had walked the half-dozen paces to the middle of the road, had put foot to the step, had been seized above either elbow by an ill-washed vigorous hand, had been lifted rather than helped into the brake, and with much squeezing, swearing, laughing and loud welcoming, in a mixture of the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire dialects, had been forced into their midst and wedged tightly between a fat man and a fat woman.

“ Thou’s gotten a divorce, George, from t’ oad woman at last,” said a dark-haired sturdy rough-coated minerlike young fellow.

“ Nay,” said the woman, “ it’s me as has gotten the divorce; an’ a jolly good riddance an’ all.”

“Nay, Harry, lad,” said another, a little dumpling of a man, after he had measured with his merry eyes

Lord Beiley’s slenderness of girth; “ nay, i’ my opinion the present difference atween George an’ Liz is ’ardly enough for a divorce; call it a mewchal separation for the good o’ the neebours.”

Again they laughed, bass and a shrill squeal of treble.

“What price that red glass ring, matey?” said the young miner. “ I shouldna mind haein’ one like it mysen.”

“ I don’t exactly remember,” said Beiley.

“ It ’ud besummat if thou could tell me to fifty pound.”

“ I couldn’t.”

They laughed again, and would have laughed more, but were just passing the hall lodge. The brake was stopped; each had to twist head and stretch neck, or stand and crane forwards in order to catch an uncertain glimpse of the park.

“ It’s a main big place,” said a gaunt grey-haired dull-eyed .six-footer; “it reminds me wonnerfully o’ that’n wheer I were born.”

“That must a bin the workus then, Stiff’un,” said a stripling in black coat and hat, white flannel trousers and cricket belt.

“Ay, Peter,” said Stiff’un, “it were; I’m not baugein’ an’ boastin’ as if ’twere the county lunatic ’sylum.”

Which, as the shouts of laughter testified, was considered a smart retort upon Peter.

As they got astart again a voice from the box bade them ask the counter-jumper if he knew who lived there. His lordship, gathering from a general chorus of personalities that he was meant by the counter-jumper, replied that it was one of the Earl of Hexgrove’s places.

“Ah, yo’re in wee’m, I see,” said the dumpling of a man ; they called him Poley.

“ What do you mean ?”

“Thick wee’m,” said one.

“ A pal o’ yourn,” said another.

“Sort o’ know ’im intimate like,” finally said fat George at his elbow wheezily.

I don’t know anybody intimately; do you?” said Beiley.

“ Rayther,” answered George. ‘‘My missis t’other side on yer for example. Eh, Liz> don’t I know yer ? Ay, yo huzzy, that I do.”

“An’ I know yo, George; better nor well enough. I knowed yer well enough afore iver I’d spoke to yer.“

“ Ay, an’ I know yer nagging oad mother an’ all.”

“ Ay, an’ I know yer scabby oad fayther an’ all. I know ’im well; well I know ’im.”

“ An’ yer brother Jos, the swine.”

“ An’ yer sister Betty. If Jim’s a swine she’s a besom. I’ve hed my ears open if I’ve kep my mouth shut.”

“ Yo’re a fow-mouthed troll to say so.”

“ Yo’re a black-’earted varmin to miscall our Jos.”

Lord Beiley had grown uneasy at being as it were the conductor of their violent recriminations.

“ Hadn’t a broader gentleman better take my place?” he said.

Laughter broke up the quarrel.

“ Coom, Liz, coom, George; this een’t whissunning, this een’t. Sattle it ower a can at the next pub an’ save yer breath for the Sheffield ’andicap.”

The next public-house was close at hand on the outskirts of the town, and there they stopped. There was another brake ahead of that in which Beiley was seated, besides some half-dozen bicyclists. They all had glasses round amid the lively artillery of gibe and laughter from vehicle to vehicle, crossed by the raking comment of cyclist and bystander on the pavement. Beiley had no liking for beer, but he took his glass with the others. He wished Lord Hexgrove had been driving by to see him ; he, a man who had hitherto kept a perfect fastidiousness, the special virtue of his class. He felt a perverse pleasure in doing what offended his own sense of decency.

When all was drunk but much still unsaid, again they got astart, with whooping and shouting, and the mingledy-pingledy music to any tune and no tune of a bugle, an accordion, a mouth-organ and a penny trumpet, supported by the singing of those who thought they could sing, and the shrill whistling of those who did not care to try. There was rising ground in front of them, but swerving to the right they skirted on the flat a manufacturing suburb, a residential quarter and an old castle-rock; then followed a crooked irregular cross-way and soon found themselves in the dingy thick of the town.

It was a small and shapeless open space formed by the meeting of several busy unattractive streets and alleys, and decorated on the one hand by a row of almshouses, on the other by two inns. They stopped at the latter and again loudly called for their half-pints and half-quarterns. Lord Beiley with the others; apparently he was suffering from thirst sympathetic. There was soon a crowd around them, by equal parts admiring and amused. Harry, the hot-headed young miner, from chaffing got to wrangling with the bystanders, and was particularly personal to a tall thin moustachioed man in his shirt-sleeves.

‘‘Hark to me, stockinger,^’ he shouted; “in our place the women use sich uns as thee to tie round their parcels o’ calicker. They wouldna call thee a mon ; they’d call thee a ha’porth o’ twine.’’

The thin man took his pipe from his mouth and said :

“ I see, surry; yo’re —

‘ Derbysheer bred ;

Strong i’ th’ arm an’ weak i’ th’ head.’”

The young miner uprose.

“ I’m agooin’,’’ he said, “to try my head again thy arm.”

He was thrust back into his seat by the violent persuasion of half-a-dozen rough hands.

“ Fie on thee, Harry,” said Liz. “ Is them yer manners ? Coom ! What’ll the stockingers think to ’s ?’’

Harry, convinced by the rough hands and the reason, immediately turned right-about-face to the extreme of good fellowship. He held forth his can to his antagonist on the pavement.

‘‘ Here, surry !*’ he said. “ Ne’er mind what uz says; we’re whissunnin’. Teem some o’ this down into thy belly an’ swell it out. A barrel on’t ud mek a hafemon on thee.”

The stockinger put forth his hand and drank with this sentiment :

” Here’s luck to thee, lad; and if theer’s anybody i’ th’ fam’ly with a saving o’ sense, may ’e die an’ leave it to thee.”

The laugh was so general that Harry joined in without closely weighing the occasion of it. Nothing would serve him now but to blunder down the brake steps and with fervid vows of friendship shake hands one by one with the whole mob of laughing spectators. Then off they drove again amid a chorus of farewells, jovial, sarcastic, envious, amused. If one of Lord Beiley’s friends could have beheld him thus his satisfaction would have been complete ; he would have delighted in the cursory supercilious glance, the arrested eye, the sudden recognition, the irrepressible amazement. With the leisurely choice of an epicure he ran through the various names of kinsfolk and others whom he would have liked to encounter thus; haughty dowagers, flawless mashers, pompous legislators, belles of the ball-room, he ran through them all. Except Lady Sally; his thoughts kept away from her.

Boys and girls followed them shrieking and laughing, and shouting ” Chuck uz a penny, mesters, chuck uz a penny!” Pence and ha’pence rattled on the stones, and the children scrambled for them, head over heels. Lord Beiley tossed them a handful of shillings and halfcrowns. Helter-skelter flew the children ; the brakes screamed with laughter; the miner gave the lord a disconcerting thump of approval between his shoulderblades.

‘‘Well done, counter-joomper he yelled; “ thou’s more droonker nor what thou seems.”

“Thank you,” said Lord Beiley, with a somewhat gaspy nonchalance; “but kindly favour another back with your next compliment.”

Everybody laughed.

It was now the unanimous vote of the company that he was incomparably the drunkest of them all ; but their admiration was genial. Over the uneven granite the ill-compacted vehicles bumped along. All smoked except the women and a little wizened barber who took snuff, and the rankness of the fumes filled the air. Beiley, whether in emulation or self-defence, lighted a cigar. The midday heat was doubled by the close contact of perspiring body to body. The cats’ music of instrument and voice was going on all the while. Liz squealed into his one ear how hot she was, and that she’d a husband’s sister’s husband at Nottingham in the tuffey trade; George bawled into his other, enlarging incoherently upon his contempt for British generalship and his liking for pickled cabbage.

But at length they began to leave the stony town; the wheels merely rumbled a ground-bass to the uproar of the voices. On the one hand the flowery meadows were ripening into hay, on the other a tree-clad steep rejoiced to have once more escaped out of the death of winter; though marred, both fields and cliff, by a double pair of rails. The jovial company was loudly, even coarsely amused by two of the bicyclists ; a woman enormously fat, with a face in a purple agony, always a long way behind, and a stolid heavily-built man of about forty, a collier with an imperfectly washed face, who rode for the first time. Every now and then he fell off, ran into wall, hedge or ditch, collided with a foot-passenger or fellow-cyclist. Amid boisterous jeers he immediately regained his feet; his dust-laden clothes bore an addition of dust; he made neither complaint nor apology, had neither smile nor frown on his grimy face; if anything, looked cooler than everybody else.

lo A WALKING GENTLEMAN

He remounted with the assistance of a laughing comrade, made a wobbling start, and presently after a devious run of uncertain length again came to grief. One speech he made at his fifteenth fall ; both before and after which his mouth remained closed, a natural closure with no sign of constraint.

“ OVve peed ma money,” he said, ‘‘ for a whull dee; and for a whull dee oi mane to roide ’er. To-morrer onybody may hae ’er as loikes, for may. OiM sooner w^ork unnerground for noat an* foind mysen.*’

They stopped to drink at Lowfields, a mushroom of a glace sprung up round a railway junction. Here in consideration of three half-dollars and a half-pint the accordion passed into the possession of Peter, who spent the remainder of the journey in laboriously extracting discord from it. On either hand and in front of him sat as assessors a self-elected committee of inexperts, who seemed to think that a musical instrument is a sort of conundrum whose meaning is to be arrived at by a persistence in wild guess-work. They unnecessarily encouraged him w^hen he was over sanguine, and fed his despair when he talked of chucking the fool of a thing into the hedge-bottom.

They stopped again, so hot was the day, a mile further on at Bardwell. It was their humour at these and other stoppages so to abridge their thirst, that they were ready to start again just as the fat lagging female bicyclist trundled up, panting and sweating. But they would not have gone above a furlong or two before some good-natured fellow or other would be sure to shout to the driver to pull up, w^ould take out a flask and say :

” Here, oad gell ! It worn’t ’ardly jonnock;^ no, it worn*t. Here, drink a sup o* this. I lay yo’ve lost a stun an’ a hafe sin last we seed yer. Afore we get to Welham yo’ll be as thin as a lat.”^

And so they waited while she sipped and recovered breath, bantering her the while in terms that were more humorous than refined. In a momentary silence they ^ Fair. 2 Lath.

II could hear a lark sing overhead, lost in the sunshine; below a ploughman called to his fellow in the next field. Beyond the range of their tobacco the air was filled with the fragrance of the hawthorn.

Still they drove down the river valley through Crifton and Clayton, with due stoppages of course. All the way they had on their left hand a line of dumpy hillocks often covered with wood; on their right level tree-besprinkled fields, fat meadows wherein sometimes the green predominated, sometimes the gold of the buttercup or the snow of the cow-parsley. And the foliage of the hedges hardly appeared for the abundance of bloom. The barber said :

“ It looks like as if th' hedges was all hung ower wi’ women’s smocks an’ children’s pinnies.”

They stayed the brakes for a while on the further side of Clayton, where a number both of the men and women got out to gather bunches of May, of herb Robert, lambs’-toes and red campions, laughing and playing together like children let loose. Beiley, who had remained sitting, said to the red-faced puffy butcher opposite to him ;

“ By the bye, where are we going?”

” To Welham,” was the answer. ” Do yer know it at all?”

“ A nyst place. There’s a cathedrial, a work’us an’ a haf e-dozen good housen.”

“ Houses? Oh! half-a-dozen rests for the horses?”

“ Yer needn’t want to get no nigher.”

“ Them boys at the cathedal sings a treat,” said the barber.

“I’m partial to a bit o’ good music after a good blow-out,” said George; “ it seems to top it up, like.”

“ I’ve noat to say agen good music,” said the butcher; “ I’ve three darters as larns the pianner; but to my fancy, when y’ave put away as much as yer can eat an’ drink, there’s noat does yer so much good as a pipe o’ bacca,”

The blossom-gatherers got in again and wedged themselves into their respective places. Liz seated herself partly upon Lord Beiley’s knee, accidentally of course. When they were fairly astart the young miner noisily called attention to it.

“George! look, mon ! Wheer’s thy oys? Shay’s huggling the counter-joomper. Get angry, mon. Pull thy shirt out. Show’s thy bad manners. Uz o’ this side’s aw of a bloosh to see’t. Look at Bootcher Gilpin’s face. Cut ’is throat, thou sluggard, an’ smack her i’ th’ chaps.”

“ Ler ’em be, George,” said Stiff’un, “don’t be hoggish. Theer’s enough meat on Liz to content yo an’ ’im an’ all, let yer appetites be what they wdll.”

“ Yo mun get a divorce on ’er to-morrer, George,” said Poley, “ an’ marry the widder. She’ll hae yer. I’ll be bound.”

“ No, she wain’t, Poley,” said the widow, a blowzy forty-year-old, always laughing. “ When she wants to marry again theer’s a better man nor George acoortin’ on ’er.”

“ Who is ’t. Peg?” said Peter; and “ Is ’t me. Peg?” said Harry and half-a-dozen others, while Peg laughed and laughed again.

Not a man nor a woman but had a branch of May in the hand or a sprig of May in the hat or cap, and for a little while the natural fragrance had the better of the tobacco smoke; for a little while by a caprice of humour the horse-play and laughter ceased, even Peter let his accordion be, and a certain seriousness settled on their faces. They ran through Bradeley, where the laburnums at the mill hung their blossoms down to the water, where every garden was a-bloom with flowers, and the road was thickly hedged on either hand with elm and chestnut and new-leaved ash, making delicious shade.

“ Reelly, I could live in sich a place all my days,” said the widow, her laugh refined to a chuckle.

“ An’ be buried by yonner chutch down among them green trees,” said Poley with a half sigh.

“ It smells different here to what it does unnerground, Davy,” said Harry.

And a deep voice from a mouth out of sight answered, “ It does that, lad.”

“The fields is just like a pixcher wi' posies,” said a little old straight-backed grey-haired woman, named Fan.

“ I think I like to be in a hay-field among the sweet ’ay better nor oat,” said Liz.

“ But it een’t alius ’ay-mekkin’ even here, lass,” said the six-footer.

“ Just hark at that bird !” said Peter.

“ What bird is’t, I wunner?” said the barber.

A little bird that from the top of a tall elm soared into the air, then descended to its perch on outspread wfings, singing all the time with an ecstasy of joy that disdained the changes of art ; and hardly had it alighted but it soared again and sang again. One thought it was sky-lark, another thought it must be a ground-lark, another had never heard the like on’t afore; and they stopped the rumble of their wheels for a few minutes under a spreading oak-tree that they might listen the better.

“What is’t, Paley’s Frank?” said George.

But Paley’s Frank was listening and did not answer.

“ It’s beautiful !” said the widow out of a full heart, meaning not the song alone but the setting of it, the lush green and especially the unfathomable blue.

They drove on again, still commending the beauty of their surroundings till Fan said casually, for the sake of a change :

“ ’Ow ’ot yer do look, Liz ! It ud melt taller just to look at yer.”

Everybody gave a gasp all at once, and the heat which had hitherto been their amusement was felt to be unbearable.

“ I don’t look no more ’otter nor nubbudy else,” said Liz, panting and resenting; “for I couldn’t.”

‘‘ Put yer ’and to my back,” said the widow; “ it fair burns; it ud toast bread.”

“Pm ommost sweltered,” said George.

“Sweltered?” said Peter, “that’s not in it; I’m roast beef an’ mustard.”

“ If thou’d said roast pig, Peter,” said Harry, “ thou’d a bin nearer t’ mark.”

“Nay,” said Stiff’un, “there een’t enough sward ^ on ’im for pig; I reckon Peter ud eat more liker a summat too oad for cawf an’ not oad enough for cow.”

The new swerve of the conversation opportunely brought them to the Flying Horse at Monckton, their next halting-place, where their speech was freer, their laughter louder, their thirst more fiery than ever. Again they started, again the poor panting she-bicyclist w^as left behind amid a chorus of friendly gibes. But then their course left the level road of the river valley, and began to traverse the low but steep hills which for so many miles had bounded their view to the north. The steaming horses found the gradient too severe for them ; all the men had to get out and walk in order to ease them. The widow took full breaths and fanned herself with a not quite white handkerchief.

“ I wish to anything yo men ud stop out,” she said, “ now y’are out; there’d be some comfort.”

“ Yer’d scon be out after uz, Peg,” said Poley.

“ Not i’ this life, Poley, not i’ this life.”

“Then, b’ leddy, it’ll be sudden death. Peg,” said Stiff’un; “there’ll be no time nayther for a drench o’ watter nor a sniff o’ salts. So I’ll say good-bye now. Peg, whilst there’s time.”

Solemnly he shook hands with her. The other men crowded round and did the same; some slapped her broad back, others pulled her head down to their lips and kissed her, she laughing all the while.

“ Yo nummies,” said Fan, “all Peg means by change o’ life is married Pfe. She’ll non die whilst she can mug an’ marry.”

* Rind.

“Wish yer many ’appy returns, Peg,” said Poley.

“ Criky, lad,” said Stiff’un, “there’s plenty on’s alive yet to sarve Peg’s turn wi’out any re-turns. Them as her an’ the doctor’s put out ’n their misery, leave ’em i’ peace.”

“ If I’ve nivver done nubbudy no more ’arm. Bill,” said the widow, “ nor what I’ve done yo, I’m a guiltless woman.”

“ I say noat again that, but I’m afeard o’ th’ future.”

“ Yo nedn’t to be.”

“ M’appen not; but I’m like a woman an’ a cow; she knows it’s a cow but she’s afeard it’s a bull.”

A second time the men had to alight. The youngsters began running against one another uphill, stopped half-way and threw themselves down on the banks, panting. The little barber was explaining to Lord Beiley that their outing had been promoted by the Watford Preservative Club, of which a good few of them were members.

“This isn’t our grand yearly do,” he said; “that’s in August; it’ll be summat like. Sir Thomas Saywell, M.P.’s promised to be present.”

“So we’re sure,” said Harry, “ ayther o’ him or a letter o’ ’pology.”

“ But as we gen’rally reckons to bring wer own appetites,” said Poley, “that don’t so much matter.”

“ But of what,” asked his lordship, “ is your club preservative? Apricots and ”

“ Dear ’eart, no,” said the barber quite hastily; “ it’s the priv’leges of the people we’re banded to presarve.”

“ Th’ ’ouse of lords,” said Stuff ’un, “ the game laws, the dug tax, sickness an’ poverty, an’ all our other oad ancient charters.”

“Why should you? Are you all members of the peerage and game preservers?”

“ Not by no means.”

“But one on’s,” said Poley, “is a game poacher. Wheer is ’e? Wheer’s Paley’s Frank?”

A unanimous pointing of nose or finger indicated a i6 A WALKING GENTLEMAN

little middle-aged man in a black coat, the quietest of the whole party, and next to the barber of the meanest presence. The only token that he heard was a further rounding of his shoulders as he trudged uphill, hands buried in pockets.

“ Oi belave hay started t’oad cloob hissen, the cunning toad,’’ said Harry.

“ That ’e did,” said the six-footer; “ ’e reckoned up as if the game laws was repaled there’d be no more taste like about snarin’ a hare anights nor limin’ sparrers adays. Didn’t yer, Frank?”

But Paley’s Frank neither looked nor said.

“About what’s the time o’ day by your tunnip, counter-joomper ?” said Peter.

Beiley looked at his watch and forgot to answer. It was past the time at which he had promised to meet Lady Sally at luncheon. He fell into a muse which lasted until they reached Welham. The first thing he did there was to telegraph an apology to Lady Hexgrove. His way of putting it — that he had been “unexpectedly called away” — was perhaps as near to the truth as in telegraphic civility he could have gone.