Tom Erricker was the last fellow in the world to whom one could offer any fine gush of feeling; because he was sadly sentimental sometimes, when his veins of thought were varicose, and when something nasty had happened to himself; but when his spirits were up, you would think there had never been a tear shed in the world, except by some brat who knew not how to cut his teeth. He was now in great exaltation at having fetched me, as he thought, to his level; for I had always regarded his light flirtations with a pleasant turn of humour, and he could not see the difference between himself and me. So I rode Old Joseph, who was a good tall horse; and he on little Amabel looked up at me, with no more reverence than Sancho Panza showed to the immortal knight, who ever failed to elevate him.
"Give me an open country, not your slash and scratch-pins." There was nothing Tom loved more than talking as if he had followed hounds from his infancy, instead of growing up under a dish-cover; but romancing on such subjects would not go down with me.
"Surely you might have brought us by a better road than this, George. I have had my bad times, I don't mind them in a burst; but I'm blessed if I like being scratched to pieces, with nothing whatever to show for it."
"To talk about, you mean, Tom. Well, here we get out into as pretty a bit of firland as can be found even in Surrey; and that may challenge all England to equal it. But I never go in for the picturesque."
"To be sure, not. The ladies do it ever so much better. To own the land, or at any rate the shooting, is the chief thing for us to care about. And the shooting is worth twice as much as the crops, in the present condition of the market. Never mind, George, I won't talk about that, for I know it is a very sore subject. Do you mean to say that all this belonged to you, not more than fifty years ago?"
"Out of the frying-pan into the fire, as regards the subject," I answered with a smile, for I knew that he never meant to vex me. "But I am sorry that we cannot give you leave even to poke about here with your gun, and pot blackbirds and magpies. There go two magpies! You don't often get so near them."
"Two for a wedding—don't they say? A good omen for you, George. But where the deuce does your nymph hang out? Aha! good hit of mine! A nymph means a bride, doesn't she, in Greek?"
"Shut up!" I said, for this talk was very paltry, and perhaps Tom Erricker's appearance was not quite up to the mark of a romantic moment. My chief desire was to gaze across the valley, down the further side of which, about a mile away, I could trace pretty clearly by its fringe of bushes the windings of the brook which I had crossed that day on my return from Guildford. It seemed to be ages ago, whereas it was only four weeks; but I had thought about it enough to make a very broad space of time. And here was Tom chaffing, and eager to make fun, with his red plaid trousers forced up to his knees by his jerking about in the saddle, and his loftiest air of acquaintance with the world, and his largest smiles of superiority to women. For the moment I longed to deposit him in an ant-hill.
"Well, what can I see? Or what am I to look for?" He spoke as if he had paid me for a view and I was bound to make it worth the money. Whereas, though I did ask his opinion at a distance, it was the last thing I should think of now; and in plain truth, what business had he here at all, and spying about through a shilling eyeglass? But it was not for me to take things as he did. Let him long to enter into them.