Love Among the Chickens<br />A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm, P. G. Wodehouse [i love reading books .txt] 📗

t has been well observed that there are moments and moments. The present, as far as I was concerned, belonged to the more painful variety.

Even to my exhausted mind it was plain that there was need here for explanations. An Irishman's croquet lawn is his castle, and strangers cannot plunge on to it unannounced through hedges without being prepared to give reasons.

Unfortunately, speech was beyond me. I could have done many things at that moment. I could have emptied a water butt, lain down and gone to sleep, or melted ice with a touch of the finger. But I could not speak. The conversation was opened[94] by the other man, in whose soothing hand the hen now lay, apparently resigned to its fate.

"Come right in," he said pleasantly. "Don't knock. Your bird, I think?"

I stood there panting. I must have presented a quaint appearance. My hair was full of twigs and other foreign substances. My face was moist and grimy. My mouth hung open. I wanted to sit down. My legs felt as if they had ceased to belong to me.

"I must apologize—" I began, and ended the sentence with gasps.

Conversation languished. The elderly gentleman looked at me with what seemed to me indignant surprise. His daughter looked through me. The man regarded me with a friendly smile, as if I were some old crony dropped in unexpectedly.

"I'm afraid—" I said, and stopped again.[95]

"Hard work, big-game hunting in this weather," said the man. "Take a long breath."

I took several and felt better.

"I must apologize for this intrusion," I said successfully. "Unwarrantable" would have rounded off the sentence nicely, but instinct told me not to risk it. It would have been mere bravado to have attempted unnecessary words of five syllables at that juncture.

I paused.

"Say on," said the man with the hen encouragingly, "I'm a human being just like yourself."

"The fact is," I said, "I didn't—didn't know there was a private garden beyond the hedge. If you will give me my hen—"

"It's hard to say good-by," said the man, stroking the bird's head with the first finger of his disengaged hand. "She and I are[96] just beginning to know and appreciate each other. However, if it must be—"

He extended the hand which held the bird, and at this point a hitch occurred. He did his part of the business—the letting go. It was in my department—the taking hold—that the thing was bungled. The hen slipped from my grasp like an eel, stood for a moment overcome by the surprise of being at liberty once more, then fled and intrenched itself in some bushes at the farther end of the lawn.

There are times when the most resolute man feels that he can battle no longer with fate; when everything seems against him and the only course left is a dignified retreat. But there is one thing essential to a dignified retreat. One must know the way out. It was that fact which kept me standing there, looking more foolish than anyone has ever looked since the world began. I could hardly ask to be conducted off the[97] premises like the honored guest. Nor would it do to retire by the way I had come. If I could have leaped the hedge with a single bound, that would have made a sufficiently dashing and debonair exit. But the hedge was high, and I was incapable at the moment of achieving a debonair leap over a footstool.

The man saved the situation. He seemed to possess that magnetic power over his fellows which marks the born leader. Under his command we became an organized army. The common object, the pursuit of the hen, made us friends. In the first minute of the proceedings the Irishman was addressing me as "me dear boy," and the other man, who had introduced himself rapidly as Tom Chase, lieutenant in his Majesty's navy, was shouting directions to me by name. I have never assisted at any ceremony at which formality was so completely dispensed with. The ice was not[98] merely broken, it was shivered into a million fragments.

"Go in and drive her out, Garnet," shouted Mr. Chase. "In my direction, if you can. Look out on the left, Phyllis."

Even in that disturbing moment I could not help noticing his use of the Christian name. It seemed to me sinister. I did not like the idea of dashing young lieutenants in the royal navy calling a girl Phyllis whose eyes had haunted me for just over a week—since, in fact, I had first seen them. Nevertheless, I crawled into the bushes and dislodged the hen. She emerged at the spot where Mr. Chase was waiting with his coat off, and was promptly enveloped in that garment and captured.

"The essence of strategy," observed Mr. Chase approvingly, "is surprise. A devilish neat piece of work."

I thanked him. He deprecated the thanks. He had, he said, only done his[99] duty, as a man is bound to do. He then introduced me to the elderly Irishman, who was, it seemed, a professor—of what I do not know—at Dublin University. By name, Derrick. He informed me that he always spent the summer at Lyme Regis.

"I was surprised to see you at Lyme Regis," I said. "When you got out at Yeovil, I thought I had seen the last of you."

I think I am gifted beyond other men as regards the unfortunate turning of sentences.

"I meant," I added speedily, "I was afraid I had."

"Ah, of course," he said, "you were in our carriage coming down. I was confident I had seen you before. I never forget a face."

"It would be a kindness," said Mr. Chase, "if you would forget Garnet's as[100] now exhibited. You'll excuse the personality, but you seem to have collected a good deal of the professor's property coming through that hedge."

"I was wondering," I said with gratitude. "A wash—if I might?"

"Of course, me boy, of course," said the professor. "Tom, take Mr. Garnet off to your room, and then we'll have some lunch. You'll stay to lunch, Mr. Garnet?"

I thanked him for his kindness and went off with my friend, the lieutenant, to the house. We imprisoned the hen in the stables, to its profound indignation, gave directions for lunch to be served to it, and made our way to Mr. Chase's room.

"So you've met the professor before?" he said, hospitably laying out a change of raiment for me—we were fortunately much of a height and build.

"I have never spoken to him," I said. "We traveled down together in a very full[101] carriage, and I saw him next day on the beach."

"He's a dear old boy, if you rub him the right way."

"Yes?" I said.

"But—I'm telling you this for your good and guidance—he can cut up rough. And when he does, he goes off like a four point seven. I think, if I were you—you don't mind my saying this?—I think, if I were you, I should not mention Mr. Tim Healy at lunch."

I promised that I would try to resist the temptation.

"And if you could manage not to discuss home rule—"

"I will make an effort."

"On any other