"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Blest if I know. Look at those chickens. They've been doing that for
the last half hour."
I inspected the chickens. There was certainly something the matter
with them. They were yawning broadly, as if we bored them. They stood
about singly and in groups, opening and shutting their beaks. It was
an uncanny spectacle.
"What's the matter with them?"
"It looks to me," I said, "as if they were tired of life. They seem
hipped."
"Oh, do look at that poor little brown one by the coop," said Mrs.
Ukridge sympathetically, "I'm sure it's not well. See, it's lying
down. What _can_ be the matter with it?"
"Can a chicken get a fit of the blues?" I asked. "Because, if so,
that's what they've got. I never saw a more bored-looking lot of
birds."
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Ukridge. "We'll ask Beale. He once
lived with an aunt who kept fowls. He'll know all about it. Beale!"
No answer.
"_Beale_!!"
A sturdy form in shirt sleeves appeared through the bushes, carrying
a boot. We seemed to have interrupted him in the act of cleaning it.
"Beale, you know about fowls. What's the matter with these chickens?"
The hired retainer examined the _blasé_ birds with a wooden expression
on his face.
"Well?" said Ukridge.
"The 'ole thing 'ere," said the hired retainer, "is these 'ere fowls
have bin and got the roop."
I had never heard of the disease before, but it sounded quite
horrifying.
"Is that what makes them yawn like that?" said Mrs. Ukridge.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Poor things!"
"Yes, ma'am."
"And have they all got it?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"What ought we to do?" asked Ukridge.
The hired retainer perpended.
"Well, my aunt, sir, when 'er fowls 'ad the roop, she give them snuff.
Give them snuff, she did," he repeated with relish, "every morning."
"Snuff!" said Mrs. Ukridge.
"Yes, ma'am. She give them snuff till their eyes bubbled."
Mrs. Ukridge uttered a faint squeak at this vivid piece of word
painting.
"And did it cure them?" asked Ukridge.
"No, sir," responded the expert soothingly. "They died."
"Oh, go away, Beale, and clean your beastly boots," said Ukridge.
"You're no use. Wait a minute. Who would know about this infernal roop
thing? One of those farmer chaps would, I suppose. Beale, go off to
farmer Leigh at Up Lyme, and give him my compliments, and ask him what
he does when his fowls get the roop."
"Yes, sir."
"No, I'll go, Ukridge," I said, "I want some exercise."
I whistled to Bob, who was investigating a mole heap in the paddock,
and set off to consult farmer Leigh. He had sold us some fowls shortly
after our arrival, so might be expected to feel a kindly interest in
their ailing families.
The path to Up Lyme lies across deep-grassed meadows. At intervals it
passes over a stream by means of foot bridges. The stream curls
through the meadows like a snake.
And at the first of these bridges I met Phyllis.
I came upon her quite suddenly. The other end of the bridge was hidden
from my view. I could hear somebody coming through the grass, but not
till I was on the bridge did I see who it was. We reached the bridge
simultaneously. She was alone. She carried a sketching block. All
nice girls sketch a little.
There was room for one alone on the foot bridge, and I drew back to
let her pass.
As it is the privilege of woman to make the first sign of recognition,
I said nothing. I merely lifted my hat in a noncommitting fashion.
"Are you going to cut me, I wonder?" I said to myself.
She answered the unspoken question as I hoped it would be answered.
"Mr. Garnet," she said, stopping at the end of the bridge.
"Miss Derrick?"
"I couldn't tell you so before, but I am so sorry this has happened."
"You are very kind," I said, realizing as I said it the miserable
inadequacy of the English language. At a crisis when I would have
given a month's income to have said something neat, epigrammatic,
suggestive, yet withal courteous and respectful, I could only find a
hackneyed, unenthusiastic phrase which I should have used in accepting
an invitation from a bore to lunch with him at his club.
"Of course you understand my friends must be my father's friends."
"Yes," I said gloomily, "I suppose so."
"So you must not think me rude if I--I--"
"Cut me," said I with masculine coarseness.
"Don't seem to see you," said she, with feminine delicacy, "when I am
with my father. You will understand?"
"I shall understand."
"You see"--she smiled--"you are under arrest, as Tom says."
Tom!
"I see," I said.
"Good-by."
"Good-by."