“Would this be any use?” said Philbrick, producing an enormous service revolver. “Only take care; it’s loaded.”
“The very thing,” said the Doctor. “Only fire into the ground, mind. We must do everything we can to avoid an accident. Do you always carry that about with you?”
“Only when I’m wearing my diamonds,” said Philbrick.
“Well, I hope that is not often. Good gracious! Who are these extraordinary-looking people?”
Ten men of revolting appearance were approaching from the drive. They were low of brow, crafty of eye and crooked of limb. They advanced huddled together with the loping tread of wolves, peering about them furtively as they came, as though in constant terror of ambush; they slavered at their mouths, which hung loosely over their receding chins, while each clutched under his apelike arm a burden of curious and unaccountable shape. On seeing the Doctor they halted and edged back, those behind squinting and mouthing over their companions’ shoulders.
“Crikey!” said Philbrick. “Loonies! This is where I shoot.”
“I refuse to believe the evidence of my eyes,” said the Doctor. “These creatures simply do not exist.”
After brief preliminary shuffling and nudging, an elderly man emerged from the back of the group. He had a rough black beard and wore on his uneven shoulders a druidical wreath of brass mistletoe-berries.
“Why, it’s my friend the stationmaster!” said Philbrick.
“We are the silver band the Lord bless and keep you,” said the stationmaster in one breath, “the band that no one could beat whatever but two indeed in the Eisteddfod that for all North Wales was look you.”
“I see,” said the Doctor; “I see. That’s splendid. Well, will you please go into your tent, the little tent over there.”
“To march about you would not like us?” suggested the stationmaster; “we have a fine yellow flag look you that embroidered for us was in silks.”
“No, no. Into the tent!”
The stationmaster went back to consult with his fellow-musicians. There was a baying and growling and yapping as of the jungle at moonrise, and presently he came forward again with an obsequious, sidelong shuffle.
“Three pounds you pay us would you said indeed to at the sports play.”
“Yes, yes, that’s right, three pounds. Into the tent!”
“Nothing whatever we can play without the money first,” said the stationmaster firmly.
“How would it be,” said Philbrick, “if I gave him a clout on the ear?”
“No, no, I beg you to do nothing of the kind. You have not lived in Wales as long as I have.” He took a notecase from his pocket, the sight of which seemed to galvanize the musicians into life; they crowded round, twitching and chattering. The Doctor took out three pound notes and gave them to the stationmaster. “There you are, Davies!” he said. “Now take your men into the tent. They are on no account to emerge until after tea; do you understand?”
The band slunk away, and Paul and the Doctor turned back towards the Castle.
“The Welsh character is an interesting study,” said Dr. Fagan. “I have often considered writing a little monograph on the subject, but I was afraid it might make me unpopular in the village. The ignorant speak of them as Celts, which is of course wholly erroneous. They are of pure Iberian stock—the aboriginal inhabitants of Europe who survive only in Portugal and the Basque district. Celts readily intermarry with their neighbours and absorb them. From the earliest times the Welsh have been looked upon as an unclean people. It is thus that they have preserved their racial integrity. Their sons and daughters rarely mate with human kind except their own blood relations. In Wales there was no need for legislation to prevent the conquering people intermarrying with the conquered. In Ireland that was necessary, for there intermarriage was a political matter. In Wales it was moral. I hope, by the way, you have no Welsh blood?”
“None whatever,” said Paul.
“I was sure you had not, but one cannot be too careful. I once spoke of this subject to the sixth form and learned later that one of them had a Welsh grandmother. I am afraid it hurt his feelings terribly, poor little chap. She came from Pembrokeshire, too, which is of course quite a different matter. I often think,” he continued, “that we can trace almost all the disasters of English history to the influence of Wales. Think of Edward of Carnarvon, the first Prince of Wales, a perverse life, Pennyfeather, and an unseemly death, then the Tudors and the dissolution of the Church, then Lloyd George, the temperance movement, Nonconformity and lust stalking hand in hand through the country, wasting and ravaging. But perhaps you think I exaggerate? I have a certain rhetorical tendency, I admit.”
“No, no,” said Paul.
“The Welsh,” said the Doctor, “are the only nation in the world that has produced no graphic or plastic art, no architecture, no drama. They just sing,” he said with disgust, “sing and blow down wind instruments of plated silver. They are deceitful because they cannot discern truth from falsehood, depraved because they cannot discern the consequences of their indulgence. Let us consider,” he continued, “the etymological derivations of the Welsh language. …”
But here he was interrupted by a breathless little boy who panted down the drive to meet them. “Please, sir, Lord and Lady Circumference have arrived, sir. They’re in the library with Miss Florence. She asked me to tell you.”
“The sports will start in ten minutes,” said the Doctor. “Run and tell the other boys to change and go at once to the playing-fields. I will talk to you about the Welsh again. It is a matter to which I have given some thought, and I can see that you are sincerely interested. Come in with me and see the Circumferences.”
Flossie was talking to them
