He had gone a-fishing in the Dome and climbed unconsciously into preserved waters. As his creel grew heavier his back straightened; not until he returned home did the scenery impress him. He had just struck a fine fish, when a soldierly-looking man at the top of the steep bank caught sight of him.
'Hi, you sir!' shouted the onlooker. Whir went the line—there is no music like it. Rob was knee-deep in water. 'You fellow!' cried the other, brandishing his cane, 'are you aware that this water is preserved?' Rob had no time for talk. The colonel sought to attract his attention by flinging a pebble. 'Don't do that,' cried Rob fiercely.
Away went the fish. Away went Rob after it. Colonel Abinger's face was red as he clambered down the bank. 'I shall prosecute you,' he shouted. 'He's gone to the bottom; fling in a stone!' cried Rob. Just then the fish showed its yellow belly and darted off again. Rob let out more line. 'No, no,' shouted the colonel, who fished himself, 'you lose him if he gets to the other side; strike, man, strike!' The line tightened, the rod bent—a glorious sight. 'Force him up stream,' cried the colonel, rolling over boulders to assist. 'Now, you have him. Bring him in. Where is your landing-net?' 'I haven't one,' cried Rob; 'take him in your hands.' The colonel stooped to grasp the fish and missed it. 'Bungler!' screamed Rob. This was too much. 'Give me your name and address,' said Colonel Abinger, rising to his feet; 'you are a poacher.' Rob paid no attention. There was a struggle. Rob did not realise that he had pushed his assailant over a rock until the fish was landed. Then he apologised, offered all his fish in lieu of his name and address, retired coolly so long as the furious soldier was in sight, and as soon as he turned a corner disappeared rapidly. He could not feel that this was the best introduction to the man with whom he was now on his way to dine.
The reporter whose long strides made Walsh trot as they hurried to Dome Castle, was not quite the Rob of three months before. Now he knew how a third-rate newspaper is conducted, and the capacity for wonder had gone from him. He was in danger of thinking that the journalist's art is to write readably, authoritatively, and always in three paragraphs on a subject he knows nothing about. Rob had written many leaders, and followed readers through the streets wondering if they liked them. Once he had gone with three others to report a bishop's sermon. A curate appeared instead, and when the reporters saw him they shut their notebooks and marched blandly out of the cathedral. A public speaker had tried to bribe Rob with two half-crowns, and it is still told in Silchester how the wrathful Scotsman tore his benefactor out of the carriage he had just stepped into, and, lifting him on high, looked round to consider against which stone wall he should hurl him. He had discovered that on the first of the month Mr. Licquorish could not help respecting his staff, because on that day he paid them. Socially Rob had acquired little. Protheroe had introduced him to a pleasant family, but he had sat silent in a corner, and they told the sub-editor not to bring him back. Most of the literary staff were youths trying to be Bohemians, who liked to feel themselves sinking, and they never scaled the reserve which walled Rob round. He had taken a sitting, however, in the Scotch church, to the bewilderment of the minister, who said, 'But I thought you were a reporter?' as if there must be a mistake somewhere.
Walsh could tell Rob little of Colonel Abinger. He was a brave soldier, and for many years had been a widower. His elder son was a barrister in London, whom Silchester had almost forgotten, and Walsh fancied there was some story about the daughter's being engaged to a baronet. There was also a boy, who had the other day brought the captain of his school to a Silchester football ground to show the club how to take a drop-kick.
'Does the colonel fish?' asked Rob, who would, however, have preferred to know if the colonel had a good memory for faces.
'He is a famous angler,' said Walsh; 'indeed, I have been told that his bursts of passion are over in five minutes, except when he catches a poacher.'
Rob winced, for Walsh did not know of the fishing episode.
'His temper,' continued Walsh, 'is such that his male servants are said never to know whether he will give them a shilling or a whirl of his cane—until they get it. The gardener takes a look at him from behind a tree before venturing to address him. I suppose his poverty is at the bottom of it, for the estate is mortgaged heavily, and he has had to cut down trees, and even to sell his horses. The tenants seem to like him, though, and if they dared they would tell him not to think himself bound to give them this annual dinner. There are numberless stories of his fierce temper, and as many of his extravagant kindness. According to his servants, he once emptied his pocket to a beggar at a railway station, and then discovered that he had no money for his own ticket. As for the ne'er-do-weels, their importuning makes him rage, but they know he will fling them something in the end if they expose their rags sufficiently.'
'So,' said Rob, who did not want to like the colonel, 'he would not trouble about them if they kept their misery to themselves. That kind of man is more likely to be a philanthropist in your country than in mine.'
'Keep that for a Burns dinner,' suggested Walsh.
Rob heard now how Tomlinson came to be nicknamed Umbrage.
'He was sub-editing one night,' Walsh explained, 'during the time of an African war, and things were going so smoothly that he and Penny were chatting amicably together about the advantages of having a few Latin phrases in a leader, such as dolce far niente, or cela va sans dire——'
'I can believe that,' said Rob, 'of Penny certainly.'
'Well, in the middle of the discussion an important war telegram arrived, to the not unnatural disgust of both. As is often the case, the message was misspelt, and barely decipherable, and one part of it puzzled Tomlinson a good deal. It read: "Zulus have taken Umbrage; English forces had to retreat." Tomlinson searched the map in vain for Umbrage, which the Zulus had taken; and Penny, being in a hurry, was sure it was a fortress. So they risked it, and next morning the chief lines in the Mirror contents bill were: "Latest News of the War; Capture of Umbrage by the Zulus."'
By this time the reporters had passed into the grounds of the castle, and, being late, were hurrying up the grand avenue. It was the hour and the season when night comes on so sharply, that its shadow may be seen trailing the earth as a breeze runs along a field of corn. Heard from a height, the roar of the Dome among rocks might have been the rustle of the surrounding trees in June; so men and women who grow old together sometimes lend each other a voice. Walsh, seeing his opportunity in Rob's silence, began to speak of himself. He told how his first press-work had been a series of letters he had written when at school, and contributed to a local paper under the signatures of 'Paterfamilias' and 'An Indignant Ratepayer.' Rob scarcely heard. The bare romantic scenery impressed him, and the snow in his face was like a whiff of Thrums. He was dreaming, but not of the reception he might get at the castle, when the clatter of horses awoke him.
'There is a machine behind us,' he said, though he would have written trap.
A brougham lumbered into sight. As its lamps flashed on the pedestrians, the coachman jerked his horses to the side, and Rob had a glimpse of the carriage's occupant. The brougham stopped.
'I beg your pardon,' said the traveller, opening his window, and addressing Rob, 'but in the darkness I mistook you for Colonel Abinger.'
'We are on our way to the castle,' said Walsh, stepping forward.
'Ah, then,' said the stranger, 'perhaps you will give me your company for the short distance we have still to go?'
There was a fine courtesy in his manner that made the reporters feel their own deficiencies, yet Rob thought the stranger repented his offer as soon as it was made. Walsh had his hand on the door, but Rob said—
'We are going to Dome Castle as reporters.'
'Oh!' said the stranger. Then he bowed graciously, and pulled up the window.
