He clapped his hat upon his head and strode to the door. There he stood still for a moment, pulling himself together. His voice had quite recovered its geniality as he said in parting:
“With your hasty temper, old friend, you oughtn’t to touch port.”
Fishpingle heard his voice once more in the courtyard, Sir Geoffrey was speaking to his retriever.
“Good dog! Fine handsome doggie! Best dog in England, what? Come and look at the piggy-wiggies with master.”
Fishpingle crossed to the bookcase, and took out a well-used Peerage. Then he put on his spectacles. He sat down at the table and opened the ponderous tome. His fingers turned a few pages. He found “Beaumanoir” and read on.
CHAPTER IV
The few weeks before Lionel’s arrival passed pleasantly and without incident. Prudence may have sat on Alfred’s knee, or wandered with him on Sunday afternoon’s but the Squire was unaware of such doings. He remained engrossed in his preparations to provide entertainment for his son and heir, in Sir Geoffrey’s eyes a dual personality. His son he regarded as a jolly boy, a st’un or two below right weight; his heir bulked larger above the horizon. Like all men of his kidney, he thought pessimistically of the future. We are writing of pre-war days, at a time when a now famous statesman was attacking the dukes, who, perhaps, of all men in exalted positions, least deserved such assaults. The Squire was keenly aware that the greater included the less, and that he, too, was assailed. How could he answer such attacks? He, and thousands in his position, writhed in secret because pride prohibited a recital of what had been done, the innumerable sacrifices, the paring down and remitting of rents, the private charities, the cheerful renunciation of luxuries, as a “set off” against much left undone through want of means. Could a gentleman of unblemished lineage toot any horn other than that carried by him as M.F.H.? Could he touch the pitch of public controversy and not be defiled?
Nevertheless Sir Geoffrey carried a high head and a conviction that things would mend. Almost furtively, he would steal into his dining-room to stare with melancholy eyes at the Reynolds’ beauty. A neighbouring county magnate had sold just such a masterpiece, and in its honoured place hung a copy of the original. “No copy for me,” growled Sir Geoffrey to himself, thinking of awkward questions put by unsophisticated guests.
Fishpingle and he overhauled the estate accounts. The Squire employed no expert land agent. Possibly, what he gained in a saved salary was lost twice over owing to the management of an amateur. He employed his own people, a phrase ever in his mouth, and the Wiltshire peasant in the more remote districts is a blunted tool, quite unfit for the finer uses of high farming. Bonsor had no executive ability whatever. Fishpingle, on the other hand, had an instinct, almost infallible, about stock-breeding. His heart and soul were in it, like the Squire’s. Fishpingle may have known what he had saved and made for his friend and master. The Squire, serenely unconscious of his debt, took the credit en bloc and whistled complacently.