But as Stephen might have said (if he’d been capable of relaxing his admirable loyalty to his godfather), “The dear old Colonel’s always bucking about Leicestershire, but I don’t suppose he’s had half a dozen days there since he was foaled!” And when the Colonel asked one to dine at “the Club” (“You’ll always find me in town in Ascot week, my dear boy”), “the Club” (he had two) wasn’t quite up to the standard he set himself, since instead of being that full-blown fogeydom “the Naval and Military,” it had to face things out as merely (“Capital Club! Lot of nice young chaps there!”) “the Junior.”
On this special Sunday, however, I could still estimate the Colonel’s importance as being equivalent to twenty-seven pairs of top-boots. In fact, I thought him a terrific swell, and it wouldn’t have surprised me to hear that he’d won the Grand National when he was a gallant young subaltern. At luncheon (roast beef and apple tart) he was the most attentive of hosts, and by the time we had finished our port—(“I think you’ll find this a nice light-bodied wine. I get it through the Club”)—he had given most of his favourite anecdotes an airing. While the decanter was on its way round Stephen tackled him about the miseries of learning to be a chartered accountant. The lament was well received, and when he said, “I’ve been wondering, Colonel, whether I couldn’t possibly get into the Gunners through the Special Reserve,” the idea was considered a capital one.
The Colonel’s face lit up: “I tell you what, my boy, I’ll write at once to an old friend of mine at the War Office. Excellent officer—used to be in the Twenty-Third. Very useful man on a horse, too.”
Warmed up by the thought of Stephen getting a commission, he asked me whether I was in the Yeomanry. Reluctantly confessing that I wasn’t, I added that I’d been thinking about it; which was true, and the thought had filled me with unutterable alarm. When we rose from our chairs the Colonel drew my attention to the oil-paintings which adorned the walls. These were portraits of his past and present hunters—none of whom, apparently, “knew what it was to put a foot wrong.” Among many other relics and associative objects which he showed us was a large green parrot which he “had bought from a sailor five-and-twenty years ago.” He had taught the bird to ejaculate “Tear ’im and eat ’im,” and other hunting noises. Finally, with a certain access of grand seigneur dignity, he waved to us from his front doorstep and vanished into the house, probably to write a letter to his old friend at the War Office.
III
At nine o’clock next morning my cold fingers were making their usual bungling efforts to tie a white stock neatly; but as I had never been shown how to do it, my repeated failures didn’t surprise me, though I was naturally anxious not to disgrace the Rectory on my first appearance at a meet of the Ringwell Hounds. The breakfast bell was supplemented by Stephen’s incitements to me to hurry up; these consisted in cries of “Get-along-forrid” and similar hunt-servant noises, which accentuated my general feeling that I was in for a big day. While I was putting the final touches to my toilet I could hear him shouting to the two Scotch terriers who were scuttling about the lawn: (he was out there having a look at that important thing, the weather).
Fully dressed and a bit flurried, I stumped downstairs and made for the low buzz of conversation in the dining-room. Purposing to make the moderately boisterous entry appropriate to a hunting morning, I opened the door. After a moment of stupefaction I recoiled into the passage, having beheld the entire household on its knees, with backs of varying sizes turned toward me: I had entered in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer. After a temporizing stroll on the lawn I reentered the room unobtrusively; Stephen handed me a plate of porridge with a grin and no other reference was made to my breach of decorum.
After breakfast he told me that I’d no more idea of tying a stock than an ironmonger; when he had retied it for me he surveyed the result with satisfaction and announced that I now “looked ready to compete against all the cutting and thrusting soldier-officers in creation.”
By a quarter past ten the Rector was driving me to the meet in the buggy—the groom having ridden his horse on with Stephen, who was jogging sedately along on Jerry. The Rector, whose overcoat had an astrakhan collar, was rather reticent, and we did the five miles to the meet without exchanging many remarks. But it was a comfort, after my solitary sporting experiments, to feel that I had a couple of friendly chaperons, and Stephen had assured me that my hireling knew his way over every fence in the country and had never been known to turn his head. My only doubt was whether his rider would do him credit. We got to the meet in good time, and Mr. Whatman, a very large man who kept a very large livery-stable and drove a coach in the summer, was loquacious about the merits of my hireling, while he supervised my settlement in the saddle, which felt a hard and slippery one.
As I gathered up the thin and unflexible reins I felt that he was conferring a privilege on me by allowing me to ride the horse—a privilege for which the sum of thirty-five shillings seemed inadequate repayment. My mount
