She owned to that gladly. “I was sure of it,” he said. “You betrayed yourself at the school-treat. Not so much by what you did—though you worked nobly—as by what was done to you. I watched the children; they could not let you alone. They must touch you—children express themselves by their antennæ. Again I envy you, Miss Middleham.”
At this point Mr. Soames most happily, if abruptly, intervened. We were to go in. Mr. Germain started, ha’d for his mental balance, poised so for an uncertain moment, and then broke away as desired. “My stout commander! Ha, yes. I am ready. Lead, leader, and I follow.” He bowed to his late captive, left her rosily confused, and bent himself to his duty in the field.
He faced the bowling of the lower end, with carefully adjusted glasses and a resolute chin. He out-lived four balls, and actually hit two of them, but forgot to run the first—to the discomfiture of Wilcox, the saddler, who did run for it, and lost his wicket. The second he ran when he should not, though Soames’s hand and “No! No!” pealed coming disaster; and then he walked back to the tent, and thence to the Rectory garden, while Duplessis, joining Soames, made vigourous practice of the Cromberton bowling. His enthusiasm held out to the end; he marked every ball, cheered every notch. He was impartial—the fall of Soames’s wicket received his plaudits, the hundred on the telegraph got no more. For so sedate a personage he was in great spirits; he rallied the Rector on his timidity, urged Lord Cantacute to put James to the blush. He went so far, even, as to congratulate Duplessis upon his 76 not out; and when all was over reverted more than once during a leisurely stroll among the box-edged walks to the pleasures of village life. He deplored his “great, shut-up Southover.” We were too fond of our fenced enclosures. According to Tacitus the trick must be inveterate, but just now there were signs of its losing hold. Our American kindred would have none of it—a park-pale, even a garden hedge was an offence against public conscience over there. The convenience of appartements was gaining upon London, and in the country allotments were recalling the old days of the common fields. Well, he was good Liberal enough to welcome the breaking down of our grudging defences. Why should an Englishman’s house be his castle, while England, surrounded by its briny moat, was sufficient castle for us all? Merry England! England might be merry enough if Englishmen could forget themselves, and remember each other. Mrs. James did not agree with him, and shortly said so, but Lord Cantacute, who may have seen further than she cared to look, said it would never do. “It’s been tried over and over again, you know. You can’t mix people up, because they won’t meet you. If you go and make a fuss with a fellow, you’ll gratify him, you know; but what will he do? Will he make a fuss with his next-door neighbour? Not he! He’ll kick him. You’ve made him feel that he’s somebody, d’you see? So he can afford himself the luxury. No, no, Germain. I wish you were right—you ought to be—but you’re not.”
“There’s a queer kind of fellow,” his lordship went on, while Mr. Germain seemed to be holding his opinion firmly in his clasped hands behind his back, “who lives in a tilt-cart and mends kettles when the fancy takes him. Paints a good picture, too, and has plenty to say for himself. Hertha found him at that the other day, out riding—but the kettles were not far off, and the sawder bubbling in a pot on a fire. From what she says, he’s come as near to your standard as any one. No hedges there. And he’s a gentleman, mind you. Hertha says that’s clear. But look at the difference. He steps down you see. You are for pulling ’em up. That don’t do, as I say.”
Mr. Germain explained himself. “I deny the imputation; I cannot admit the possibility. Pulling up, my dear Cantacute! How can you pull up, when there is no eminence? I spoke of enclosures, of artificial barriers—a very different matter.”
“Same thing,” said my lord. “We didn’t plant ’em. They grew.”
“I met to-day again,” said Mr. Germain, pointedly to his sister-in-law, “your Miss Middleham—a charming girl—with whom I gave myself the pleasure of some little talk during the interval allowed me by my stalwart friend Soames. I became a hedge-breaker, my dear Constantia, deliberately”—Lord Cantacute’s shrewd eye being upon him, he turned to the attack—“and I can assure you that I found her in every respect worthy of my homage, in every respect. We discussed her art——”
“What’s that?” asked the lord.
“The art of teaching, my dear friend. I maintained that it was the finest art—and Miss Middleham quite agreed with me.”
Mrs. James asked him tartly what else Mary Middleham could have done, or been supposed to do. Lord Cantacute contented himself by saying that he believed she was a nice young woman.