On Wednesday, the day following this, the Squire stood at the gate of Crabb Cot after breakfast, looking this way and that. Dark clouds were chasing each other over the face of the sky, now obscuring the sun, now leaving it to shine out with intense fierceness.
“It won’t do to-day,” cried the Squire. “It’s too windy, Joe. The fish would not bite.”
“They’d bite fast enough,” said Tod, who had set his mind upon a day’s fishing, and wanted the Squire to go with him.
“Feel that gust, Joe! Why, if—halloa, here comes Letsom!”
Colonel Letsom was approaching at the pace of a steam-engine, his mild face longer than usual. Tod laughed.
The colonel, never remembering to say How d’ye do, or to shake hands, dragged two letters out of his pocket, all in a flurry.
“Such fearful news, Todhetley!” he exclaimed. “Pym—you remember that poor Pym?”
“What should hinder me?” cried the Squire. “A fine dance we had, looking for him and Verena Fontaine the other night in London! What of Pym!”
“He is dead!” gasped the colonel. “Murdered.”
The pater took off his spectacles, thinking they must affect his hearing, and stared.