"You didn't like him at first," I said to her.
"I thought he spoke slightingly of your uncle and that he meant all he said, which of course was stupid of me. He was delightful after you had gone, and talked most kindly and sensibly about you, I wish your father could have heard him."
But my father had gone to Rouen and was not coming back until ten o'clock, and I am not sure that he would have liked the Warden, so perhaps it was as well that they did not meet.
My dinner was wearisome, for Miss Davenport, the Warden's sister, was with him, and she talked while I listened. I am sorry to say she was in a very bad temper, and it seemed that the naughty Warden had kept her waiting for two hours during the afternoon. She was by no means in love with France, and though I tried to soothe her I only succeeded in making her sarcastic; I thought the Warden ought to have protected me, but he had known his sister longer than I had, and probably had forgotten that she could make any one suffer. He took no part in the conversation, and most obviously did not listen to it. My mother was disappointed when I told her about the dinner, but I think that she had expected the Warden to give me advice as well as a meal. She had formed the highest opinion of him, and said that he was so wise that he was the only man she knew who could afford to say foolish things. But when my father heard that the foolish things were said about the Bishop he did not believe in the folly of them, for he could not forget that my uncle had once played stump cricket for three hours at a stretch.
When the time came for us to go back to England I could talk French without putting in one or two English words to fill up every sentence, but I did not think that Dover Station was the place in which to be told that I must not be satisfied until I could think in French—though what the station at Dover is the proper place for, I leave to people who are cleverer than I am. I was so glad to get home again that the idea of thinking in French was quite comical. My father and I were going to shoot together, and when he is shooting he forgets all the little grievances with which he has riddled his life and he is—though it makes me blush to confess it—the best companion in the world. If he could only shoot all the year round I believe that Ritualists and Radicals would lose their powers of annoying him, and he might even end by admitting that our long-suffering cook makes curry which is fit to eat, and no more generous admission than that could be expected from an Anglo-Indian.
For nearly three weeks we lived in a state of peace and contentment which none of us thought dull, but during the first week of October I had a letter from The Bradder in which he said that he was on a walking tour and should be passing near our house. There was only one answer for me to give, but I gave it reluctantly, for though I liked him I thought that if he and my father once started upon politics our calm season would be interrupted abruptly.
"Does he shoot?" my father asked, and I said that as he was walking for amusement he would probably only stay a few hours. "We can't treat him like that; tell him to stay a week and send for his gun. For the matter of that he can have one of mine. I don't expect he will be able to hit a haystack," was his reply.
So I wrote again, and to my surprise The Bradder accepted the invitation and appeared a few days afterwards with no marks of the tourist upon him; for there is no mistaking people who are on walking tours, their anxiety to get on stamps itself upon their faces, and their luggage is generally on their backs or in their pockets. He told us that his companion had broken down three days before, and that he had been back to Oxford to get his gun. I never remember having seen anybody who looked quite so fit as he did, and my father, who had a kind of general impression that every tutor in Oxford was anaemic, seemed to be thoroughly pleased with him. Thus I was lulled into a false state of security, for I had intended to warn The Bradder not to speak of politics while he was with us, but as every one took a fancy to him at sight I thought that I need not trouble to say anything.
There was a lot of speculation about The Bradder's shooting, he shot whenever he got the ghost of a chance, but he added more to the noise than to the number of the bag. He tried to persuade my father before he started that he was the worst shot in the world, but he was not believed until he had proved that he had spoken the truth. He was, however, much happier in a bad than in a good place, and he seemed to be perfectly pleased as long as he could see an occasional bird to shoot at. My father said that he was a good sportsman, though had he not liked him he would have called him a rank bad shot.
Two days passed by successfully, and then The Bradder discovered that there was an old abbey near us, and arranged with Nina to go over and see it. Why in the world any one should want to see an abbey when he could shoot at pheasants, was more than my father could understand.