that I had been accompanied by such a formidable friend at the badger sett. Ian’s past was well known.
All the surroundings of Hernsholt now seemed to me puzzling and unfriendly; they refused, like so much at the heart of England, to be defined. Forest when seen from ground level. The tamest farming country when seen from the top of a tree. How was I to go to work within these subtle enclosures of life as well as fields? I admired that cruel devil who thought that burning alive was the right death for me. He was able to find his way through subtleties singlehanded and confidently, backed by his money and — of this I was now certain — an impregnable social position.
My own affinities with Jim Melton, I reflected sourly, were probably closer than with Ian and his kind — though whether that was because I had been brought up to laugh at the middle classes and their obsession with legal forms or because I was a fish out of water, I could not decide.
The thought of Jim Melton reminded me that he was better than nothing; indeed he might be better than anything. I walked over to see Ferrin and found him building a greenhouse in the garden behind his pub when he certainly ought to have been weeding his vegetables. He was that sort of gardener.
I asked him where I could find Jim Melton.
“Predestination, that’s what it is,” he answered drily. “The more I live round here, the more I’m certain nobody has any free will except me. Blowed if I don’t write to the Church Times about it one day! Jim said to me after you left that you’d be asking for him sometime soon, and if you did I was to send you round to his cottage.”
He gave me Jim’s address. It was a yellow-brick Council house on the road to Stony Stratford. I should have expected him to live in a derelict gamekeeper’s cottage in the middle of nowhere.
“Not he!” Ferrin said. “You wouldn’t catch Jim putting up with an old-fashioned place if he could work himself into a new one with the rate-payers paying half his rent for him.”
“I want an hour or two of his time. It will be expensive, I suppose?”
“That’s for Jim to say. But I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Dennim, he’s taken a liking to you.”
“I wonder why.”
“Ever seen an animal you couldn’t get on with?”
“Lots.”
“One that was free to be got on with, if you see what I mean?”
I did. It was well put. I certainly do not offend tame animals, and I have noticed — though the observation is worthless since it cannot be measured by statistics — that by wild creatures my presence, even when it is known, seems to be easily accepted. But I do not wish to sound like some dear old lady who claims that all cats love her. Why in the world shouldn’t they?
“Well, Jim —he doesn’t think,” Ferrin went on, “not what you and I would call thinking. He believes in his comfort, mind you, and when it comes to a deal he’s sharp. But he couldn’t tell you what makes him tick any more than his jackdaw could.”
The jackdaw was first with a greeting when I opened Jim Melton’s garden gate. It furiously attacked my ankles, pecked the hand I put down and then walked straight up my arm onto my shoulder.
Two small female Meltons, who were busy filling a doll’s pram with water, regarded this with interest.
“Mind yer ear, mister,” one said.
This was suspiciously like a word of command to the jackdaw, which gave me a sharp nip.
“Didn’t say no more than damn-you,” complained the other little girl, disappointed.
“What do visitors usually say?” I asked.
I was told. I wouldn’t have inquired if I could have guessed what was going to come out of those rosebud mouths.
“Thought you might be along, Perfesser,” said Jim Melton, appearing from the back of the house.
The jackdaw danced on my shoulder and repeated the expression it had just heard. The sounds were not really intelligible, though it made a fair shot at the word “bastard.”
“And if I
All the surroundings of Hernsholt now seemed to me puzzling and unfriendly; they refused, like so much at the heart of England, to be defined. Forest when seen from ground level. The tamest farming country when seen from the top of a tree. How was I to go to work within these subtle enclosures of life as well as fields? I admired that cruel devil who thought that burning alive was the right death for me. He was able to find his way through subtleties singlehanded and confidently, backed by his money and — of this I was now certain — an impregnable social position.
My own affinities with Jim Melton, I reflected sourly, were probably closer than with Ian and his kind — though whether that was because I had been brought up to laugh at the middle classes and their obsession with legal forms or because I was a fish out of water, I could not decide.
The thought of Jim Melton reminded me that he was better than nothing; indeed he might be better than anything. I walked over to see Ferrin and found him building a greenhouse in the garden behind his pub when he certainly ought to have been weeding his vegetables. He was that sort of gardener.
I asked him where I could find Jim Melton.
“Predestination, that’s what it is,” he answered drily. “The more I live round here, the more I’m certain nobody has any free will except me. Blowed if I don’t write to the Church Times about it one day! Jim said to me after you left that you’d be asking for him sometime soon, and if you did I was to send you round to his cottage.”
He gave me Jim’s address. It was a yellow-brick Council house on the road to Stony Stratford. I should have expected him to live in a derelict gamekeeper’s cottage in the middle of nowhere.
“Not he!” Ferrin said. “You wouldn’t catch Jim putting up with an old-fashioned place if he could work himself into a new one with the rate-payers paying half his rent for him.”
“I want an hour or two of his time. It will be expensive, I suppose?”
“That’s for Jim to say. But I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Dennim, he’s taken a liking to you.”
“I wonder why.”
“Ever seen an animal you couldn’t get on with?”
“Lots.”
“One that was free to be got on with, if you see what I mean?”
I did. It was well put. I certainly do not offend tame animals, and I have noticed — though the observation is worthless since it cannot be measured by statistics — that by wild creatures my presence, even when it is known, seems to be easily accepted. But I do not wish to sound like some dear old lady who claims that all cats love her. Why in the world shouldn’t they?
“Well, Jim —he doesn’t think,” Ferrin went on, “not what you and I would call thinking. He believes in his comfort, mind you, and when it comes to a deal he’s sharp. But he couldn’t tell you what makes him tick any more than his jackdaw could.”
The jackdaw was first with a greeting when I opened Jim Melton’s garden gate. It furiously attacked my ankles, pecked the hand I put down and then walked straight up my arm onto my shoulder.
Two small female Meltons, who were busy filling a doll’s pram with water, regarded this with interest.
“Mind yer ear, mister,” one said.
This was suspiciously like a word of command to the jackdaw, which gave me a sharp nip.
“Didn’t say no more than damn-you,” complained the other little girl, disappointed.
“What do visitors usually say?” I asked.
I was told. I wouldn’t have inquired if I could have guessed what was going to come out of those rosebud mouths.
“Thought you might be along, Perfesser,” said Jim Melton, appearing from the back of the house.
The jackdaw danced on my shoulder and repeated the expression it had just heard. The sounds were not really intelligible, though it made a fair shot at the word “bastard.”
“And if I
Similar Books
