Just opposite the gap there was a break in the wheat no more than half a yard wide, a miniature glade that gambolled straight up into the air and vanished. Lanty found himself wishing that he was just six inches high, in a purple pansy coat, red pimpernel boots and a pale primrose cap, so that he might strut along that wonderful bridle-path, and hear what the forest was saying on either hand. He had just decided that the primrose brim should be edged with thistledown, and carry a noble lamb’s-tail bravely dipping down behind, when a lumbering, ebony body, eminently unfairy-like, with lolling tongue and gleaming eyes, crashed through his forest and down his glade, bringing up heavy and panting at his very feet. Behind his shoulder, Hamer Shaw and daughter besought the fat Labrador to return to civilisation as typified by the road. He raised his hat curtly. This girl and her roystering belongings seemed destined to shatter his most precious moments. She would think that he was always gaping into vacancy like the village idiot, leaning over a rotten gate. There seemed so particularly little, too, to see just there, unless you had the seeing eye. As before, he felt annoyed and jarred.
The fat dog was too fat to squeeze, and much too fat to jump, so, stooping wrathfully, he hauled it into the lane, leaving the field much as if an elephant had frisked through it. It greeted its owners with the passionate relief of an explorer escaped from an African bush. Lanty’s silky spaniel stayed decorously to heel.
Hamer had seen him at the sale, and introduced himself, apologising for the Labrador’s behaviour.
“He isn’t used to things yet,” Dandy explained, with a hand on the smooth head. “At Halsted—our old home—he only had town-walks and motor-rides, and behaved like an urban human being. Here, he isn’t quite sure what he is, and he’s trying very hard to find out. He’s not very strong in the upper storey, and he can’t make up his mind whether he’s a retriever or an otter-hound or only a ferret. I don’t know what he thought he was, just now.”
“A reaper and binder, I should imagine!” Lanty answered crossly, and then smiled in spite of himself, conquered by the infectious cheerfulness of Hamer’s laugh. “You’d better see and get him to heel as soon as possible,” he added, severe again instantly, “or you’ll be finding him behind a fence with a plug of lead in him. The Gilthrotin keepers won’t stand any nonsense, and he’d be difficult to miss.”
“You mean he’s too fat?” Dandy asked incredulously. “Of course, he’s better fed than yours.” She looked pityingly at the graceful spaniel, who slapped a fluffy tail against the road, but did not stir. “Grumphy has always had the same meals as ourselves. We never leave him to cooks. Perhaps you don’t care for dogs. Yours seems almost afraid to move!” She hugged the Labrador, who leaned his head against her and snored loudly, while the spaniel slapped again in welcome to one who, if not quite of the right figure, was nevertheless of the only correct shade. “Grumphy doesn’t know what it is to hear an unkind word!”
Hamer Shaw laughed again, this time at the helpless disgust in Lancaster’s face.
“You think he’d be all the better for it, I expect? Perhaps I agree with you, but he’s Dandy’s dog, you see. My little girl knows nothing of country ways yet, but she’ll learn. By the way, sir, they tell me you’ve a lot to do with the fishing, here. I’ve had some trouble over my private stretch of the river, Can you spare me a minute or two?”
They fell into talk, and Dandy, excluded, wandered to the gap and stood looking at the joy-path of her stout trespasser. Grumphy was a dear, but he was certainly also a galumphing idiot. The agent-man would think she was in the habit of taking her walks with idiots. It was only the other day that her variety-troupe had danced through his evening meditation, and now her variety-dog had pranced through his corn.
“It will straighten up in a day or two, with luck,” he broke suddenly into her thoughts, looking with her up the green aisle. “And if it doesn’t, there’s not much harm done. You needn’t put too much blame on your ten stone of dog.”