"But that wasn't the end of it," proceeded the Squire after he had done justice to his youthful memories with a hearty laugh. "We celebrated the occasion with a supper of the True Blue Club, in your father's rooms—has he told you that?"
"I don't know whether he's ever told me the truth about it," admitted Bobby Trench.
"Weil, it's a long time ago," said the Squire, "and we were all young and foolish. It was a lively supper, and your father went out for a little fresh air. They used to keep the college buttery stores in barges on the river in those days, and after wandering about a bit and climbing a few fences and gates for purposes of his own he found himself on the St. John's barge. Then he thought he'd like a bath, and it didn't somehow occur to him to go in over the side, so he knocked a hole in the bottom of the barge and sank her, by George!"
Here the Squire interrupted himself to laugh again. "He had all the bath he wanted, and the wonder is he wasn't drowned," he concluded. "Well, we had some pretty lively times in those days, and it doesn't do you any harm to recall them occasionally. I should like to see your father again. It must be thirty years since I set eyes on him. Wonder if he'd care to come and shoot one of these days?"
Bobby Trench said he was sure he would be delighted, and undertook to deliver a message, which he fulfilled later on by informing his father that his one-time friend had developed into a regular old turnip-hoer, and if he wanted to sit and listen to long-winded yarns about nothing Kencote was the place to go to.
CHAPTER XIII
THE HUNT BALL
The Assembly Room of the Royal Hotel at Bathgate had been the scene of many fashionable gatherings in days gone by, when London had not been so easy of access, and the rank and fashion of South Meadshire had been wont to meet there for their mutual enjoyment, on nights when the moon was round and roads not too deep in mire. The Regent had once shown his resplendent presence there, having been entertained at Kencote by Beau Clinton, who hated the place and spent its revenues in London, but had furbished it up at rare expense—to the tradesmen who did the work—for the reception of his royal patron. The Prince had expressed himself pleased with what had been done, and told his host that it was surprising what you could do with a damned dull hole like that when you tried; but he had not repeated his visit, and Beau Clinton's extravagance had soon after been redeemed by his brother the merchant, who succeeded him as Squire of Kencote, and just in time, or there would have been nothing to succeed to.
The royal visit to the Assembly at Bathgate was still to be recalled by the lustre chandelier in the middle of the room which was surmounted by the Prince of Wales's feathers. The landlord of those days had followed the example of Beau Clinton, except in the matter of forgetting to pay his tradespeople, and spent a large sum in decorating the room; and he thought himself well repaid when the princely patron of the arts had remarked that it was "devilish chaste." It had hardly been touched since. The red silk panels on the walls were faded, and here and there frayed, and the white paint which surrounded them was much the worse for wear. Of the Sheraton settees that had once surrounded the walls only one remained, on the daïs at the end of the room. It was that on which the royal form had reposed, and the present landlord had refused, it was reported, a large sum for it. There was a musicians' gallery at the opposite end of the room, and sconces for candles between the panels. It was still a handsome room, and on the annual occasion of the South Meadshire Hunt Ball, its shabbiness disguised with flowers, it had quite an air. But it was small for these latter days, and, for the dancers, apt to be inconveniently crowded. Bobby Trench, after he had had his toes trodden on and his shirt-front crumpled, inwardly repeated his ejaculations of dinner-time, "Never again!"