“That’s why I always like a fine spring,” he said. “When it’s a fine, dry spring, I know the shooting’ll be good. The young birds grow up, and then you get what I really like, big coveys and all strong on the wing. Do you shoot?”
Frampton said that he did not shoot, but that he made guns and was accustomed to trying all his ideas with his own hands.
“Must be very interesting, making guns,” the squire thought; he had had no knowledge of any of Frampton’s inventions during the War, and did not know what they were like. To him, there were but two guns, for the killing of game, small and killing of game, big; to these might be added an occasional rook rifle.
“Are you a hunting man?” he asked.
Frampton said that he was not and would not be.
“We’re mostly huntin’ men in these parts,” the squire said. “By the way, have you met Bynd yet? Peter Bynd? He used to be Master here; now he’s secretary. He was going to write to you.”
“Yes, I’ve had his letter,” Frampton said.
“About Spirr Wood?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll excuse me asking about that,” the squire said. “I’ve been connected with the Hunt here all my life, except when I was in India. We always begin our season with a meet at Tibb’s Cross, just below here, and then draw Spirr Wood. It’s an old custom of the Hunt. Someone was saying, that you were going to preserve Spirr very strictly. I hope you aren’t going to turn us out, what?”
“I am, though,” Frampton said. “I’m making a kind of sanctuary for birds and beasts in Spirr; and though I’ve not really got going at it yet, and am only beginning with it, I don’t want it disturbed. I wrote and explained all this to Sir Peter Bynd. I’m going over to see him to-morrow.”
“I don’t know what we should do, turned out of Spirr,” the squire said. “I told Posh Tilter he ought to buy it, to make sure, when the Yocksirs were selling, but he took it for granted you’d be a hunting fellow. However, I hope Bynd’ll persuade you; an awfully good fellow, Bynd; been here a long time; clever fellow.”
“Are you fond of birds?” Frampton asked.
The squire said that he had always been fond of shooting.
“You must come out in the Spring with field-glasses,” Frampton said. “I may have some birds worth watching, then.”
“A sort of Nature study?” the squire said. “I’ve heard they do that kind of thing at some of the schools now. Fascinating thing, Nature, the more you study it. You never quite get to the bottom of it, do you?”
On this they parted. The squire’s last looks at Tristan and Isolt remained in Frampton’s memory for the rest of his life. However, he did not ask about them, shook hands and went, with some few words about the weather; and how steady the glass kept, in spite of all this cloud.
He went home, to report faithfully to his wife the conversation, and to accept from her reading of it the estimate of Frampton which was to be the Budds’ thenceforward. On the whole, Mrs. Budd judged it better, that that sort of man should not be asked into
“If he’s going to turn us out of Spirr, we can keep him out of our houses; that’s the least we can do. Besides, a man living alone like that, with a lot of good-looking servants and indecent paintings on the walls, one does not know what to think. Anyhow, he is hardly the sort of man I’m accustomed to. I was talking to old Lady Maidy on Wednesday; she said she remembered the man’s grandfather, who was a wild Red and in prison for it. She saw this fellow’s father coming round with the bread-van. You’ve done all that is expected of you. You’ve left cards. He isn’t going to shut us out of Spirr and then expect to be received. He may make guns and employ modernist painters, but he can’t be a gentleman by instinct, or he wouldn’t put us out of Spirr; and that he isn’t one by birth we know too well.”
She had a great fluency when roused. She spoke in this vein among her friends, some of whom were dining with her that night.
On the morrow, Frampton went over to lunch with Sir Peter and Lady Bynd, who had no knowledge of Mansell as yet, save by hearsay. Lady Bynd had prejudice; Sir Peter, who was a much wiser person, hoped to win him. Lady Bynd held and voiced the opinion that the county ought to be made too hot to hold him. Sir Peter, who had had dealings with many odd men in many odd and tight places, had come to know that a gentle method is often much more effective. He had caused him to be asked to lunch, and hoped that he might win him to his side.
They lived at