"The abbey will be here the next time you come, let it wait," he said at breakfast.
"I should like to see it," The Bradder replied; "besides, I never kill anything."
"You needn't bother about that."
"I have promised Miss Marten to go, she said she would drive me over," he replied, and any one could see that he didn't mean to shoot.
"As you like," my father said, and told me to be ready in ten minutes, though we were not going to start for an hour.
On the top of this we had a very disappointing day, and finished up by getting wet through, so at dinner there were many more danger signals flying than were usual in the shooting season. The Bradder, however, did not notice them, or if he did he thought them ridiculous, and he amused my mother and Nina very much, which under the circumstances was a grievous offence. I found myself in the position of trying to catch my tutor's eye, so that I could warn him to be careful with my father, and although I realized the comedy of the position I did not appreciate it. To make matters worse The Bradder would not drink any port, and as it was a wine of which my father was proud, he had to say that he never drank any wine at all before his refusal was accepted. Teetotalism in the abstract was a thing which I was encouraged to believe in, but teetotalers, who did not know when to make an exception to general rules, were not approved of at our table when '63 port was before them. Everything seemed to be going most hopelessly wrong, and I was so anxious to get into the drawing-room that I made several exceedingly fatuous remarks.
"You talk like a Radical," my father said in answer to one of them; "you want this changed and that changed, you had better go up to Hyde Park and take a tub with you, if you want to talk nonsense."
"I probably shouldn't get two people to listen to me," I replied.
"Strahan told me yesterday," he went on, "that they are teaching a lot of this Radical tomfoolery in Oxford now; he says his son has come home stuffed with it, thinks agricultural labourers are underpaid and all the rest. Is it true, Bradfield?"
"I should not say that the feeling at Oxford is as out-and-out Tory as it was, but the young Radical is often a very ridiculous man," The Bradder replied, and took a pear off the dish in front of him and began to peel it.