Colonel Quaritch, V.C. | Page 6

I fancy."
"Well, really," said the Colonel, "you are very kind; but I don't think
that my dress clothes are unpacked yet."
"Dress clothes! Oh, never mind your dress clothes. Ida will excuse you,
I daresay. Besides, you have no time to dress. By Jove, it's nearly seven
o'clock; we must be off if you are coming."

The Colonel hesitated. He had intended to dine at home, and being a
methodical-minded man did not like altering his plans. Also, he was,
like most military men, very punctilious about his dress and personal
appearance, and objected to going out to dinner in a shooting coat. But
all this notwithstanding, a feeling that he did not quite understand, and
which it would have puzzled even an American novelist to
analyse--something between restlessness and curiosity, with a dash of
magnetic attraction thrown in--got the better of his scruples, and he
accepted.
"Well, thank you," he said, "if you are sure that Miss de la Molle will
not mind, I will come. Just allow me to tell Mrs. Jobson."
"That's right," halloaed the Squire after him, "I'll meet you at the back
of the house. We had better go through the fields."
By the time that the Colonel, having informed his housekeeper that he
should not want any dinner, and hastily brushed his not too luxuriant
locks, had reached the garden which lay behind the house, the Squire
was nowhere to be seen. Presently, however, a loud halloa from the top
of the tumulus-like hill announced his whereabouts.
Wondering what the old gentleman could be doing there, Harold
Quaritch walked up the steps that led to the summit of the mound, and
found him standing at the entrance to the mushroom-shaped
summer-house, contemplating the view.
"There, Colonel," he said, "there's a perfect view for you. Talk about
Scotland and the Alps! Give me a view of the valley of Ell from the top
of Dead Man's Mount on an autumn evening, and I never want to see
anything finer. I have always loved it from a boy, and always shall so
long as I live--look at those oaks, too. There are no such trees in the
county that I know of. The old lady, your aunt, was wonderfully fond
of them. I hope--" he went on in a tone of anxiety--"I hope that you
don't mean to cut any of them down."
"Oh no," said the Colonel, "I should never think of such a thing."

"That's right. Never cut down a good tree if you can help it. I'm sorry to
say, however," he added after a pause, "that I have been forced to cut
down a good many myself. Queer place this, isn't it?" he continued,
dropping the subject of the trees, which was evidently a painful one to
him. "Dead Man's Mount is what the people about here call it, and that
is what they called it at the time of the Conquest, as I can prove to you
from ancient writings. I always believed that it was a tumulus, but of
late years a lot of these clever people have been taking their oath that it
is an ancient British dwelling, as though Ancient Britons, or any one
else for that matter, could live in a kind of drainhole. But they got on
the soft side of your old aunt-- who, by the way, begging your pardon,
was a wonderfully obstinate old lady when once she hammered an idea
into her head--and so she set to work and built this slate mushroom
over the place, and one way and another it cost her two hundred and
fifty pounds. Dear me! I shall never forget her face when she saw the
bill," and the old gentleman burst out into a Titanic laugh, such as
Harold Quaritch had not heard for many a long day.
"Yes," he answered, "it is a queer spot. I think that I must have a dig at
it one day."
"By Jove," said the Squire, "I never thought of that. It would be worth
doing. Hulloa, it is twenty minutes past seven, and we dine at half past.
I shall catch it from Ida. Come on, Colonel Quaritch; you don't know
what it is to have a daughter--a daughter when one is late for dinner is a
serious thing for any man," and he started off down the hill in a hurry.
Very soon, however, he seemed to forget the terrors in store, and
strolled along, stopping now and again to admire some particular oak or
view; chatting all the while in a discursive manner, which, though
somewhat aimless, was by no means without its charm. He made a
capital companion for a silent man like Harold Quaritch who liked to
hear other people talk.
In this way they went