"That's the idea," I said.
"Faugh!" said Tuppy--the only time I've ever heard the word.
"How do you mean, 'Faugh'?" I asked.
"Bertie," said Tuppy, "what you tell me merely makes me all the
keener for the fray. A warm game is what I want. I welcome this
sporting spirit on the part of the opposition. I shall enjoy a spot of
roughness. It will enable me to give of my best.
"Do you realize," said young Tuppy, vermilion to the gills, "that she
will be looking on? And do you know how that will make me feel? It will
make me feel like some knight of old jousting under the eyes of his
lady. Do you suppose that Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad, when there was a
tourney scheduled for the following Thursday, went and pretended they
had sprained their ankles just because the thing was likely to be a
bit rough?"
"Don't forget that in the reign of King Henry the Eighth----"
"Never mind about the reign of King Henry the Eighth. All I care about
is that it's Upper Bleaching's turn this year to play in colours, so I
shall be able to wear my old Austinian shirt. Light blue, Bertie, with
broad orange stripes. I shall look like something, I tell you."
"But what?"
"Bertie," said Tuppy, now becoming purely gaga, "I may as well tell you
that I'm in love at last. This is the real thing. I have found my mate.
All my life I have dreamed of meeting some sweet open-air girl with all
the glory of the English countryside in her eyes, and I have found her.
"How different she is, Bertie, from these hothouse, artificial London
girls! Would they stand in the mud on a winter afternoon watching a
football match? Would they know what to give an Alsatian for fits?
Would they tramp ten miles a day across the fields and come back as
fresh as paint? No!"
"Well, why should they?"
"Bertie, I'm staking everything on this game on Thursday. At the
moment, I have an idea that she looks on me as something of a weakling,
simply because I got a blister on my foot the other afternoon and had
to take the bus back from Hockley. But when she sees me going through
the rustic opposition like a devouring flame, will that make her think
a bit? Will that open her eyes? What?"
"What?"
"I said 'What?'"
"So did I."
"I meant, Won't it?"
"Oh, rather."
Here the dinner gong sounded, not before I was ready for it.
Judicious inquiries during the next couple of days convinced me that
the Servants' Hall at Bleaching Court, in advancing the suggestion that
young Tuppy, born and bred in the gentler atmosphere of the metropolis,
would do well to keep out of local disputes and avoid the football
field on which these were to be settled, had not spoken idly. It had
weighed its words and said the sensible thing. Feeling between the two
villages undoubtedly ran high, as they say.
You know how it is in these remote rural districts. Life tends at
times to get a bit slow. There's nothing much to do in the long
winter evenings but listen to the radio and brood on what a tick your
neighbour is. You find yourself remembering how Farmer Giles did
you down over the sale of your pig, and Farmer Giles finds himself
remembering that it was your son, Ernest, who bunged the half brick at
his horse on the second Sunday before Septuagesima. And so on and so
forth.
How this particular feud had started, I don't know, but the season
of peace and good will found it in full blast. The only topic of
conversation in Upper Bleaching was Thursday's game, and the citizenry
seemed to be looking forward to it in a spirit that can only be
described as ghoulish. And it was the same in Hockley-cum-Meston.
I paid a visit to Hockley-cum-Meston on the Wednesday, being rather
anxious to take a look at the inhabitants and see how formidable they
were. I was shocked to observe that practically every second male
might have been the Village Blacksmith's big brother. The muscles on
their brawny arms were obviously strong as iron bands, and the way the
company at the Green Pig, where I looked in incognito for a spot of
beer, talked about the forthcoming sporting contest was enough to chill
the blood of anyone who had a pal who proposed to fling himself into
the fray. It sounded rather like Attila and a few of his Huns sketching
out their next campaign.