The British Barbarians by Grant Allen
page 47 of 132 (35%)
page 47 of 132 (35%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
|
want here?
The Alien went out a great deal with the Monteiths. Robert himself did not like the fellow, he said: one never quite knew what the deuce he was driving at; but Frida found him always more and more charming,--so full of information!--while Philip admitted he was excellent form, and such a capital tennis player! So whenever Philip had a day off in the country, they three went out in the fields together, and Frida at least thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the freedom and freshness of the newcomer's conversation. On one such day they went out, as it chanced, into the meadows that stretch up the hill behind Brackenhurst. Frida remembered it well afterwards. It was the day when an annual saturnalia of vulgar vice usurps and pollutes the open downs at Epsom. Bertram did not care to see it, he said--the rabble of a great town turned loose to desecrate the open face of nature--even regarded as a matter of popular custom; he had looked on at much the same orgies before in New Guinea and on the Zambesi, and they only depressed him: so he stopped at Brackenhurst, and went for a walk instead in the fresh summer meadows. Robert Monteith, for his part, had gone to the Derby--so they call that orgy--and Philip had meant to accompany him in the dogcart, but remained behind at the last moment to take care of Frida; for Frida, being a lady at heart, always shrank from the pollution of vulgar assemblies. As they walked together across the lush green fields, thick with campion and yellow-rattle, they came to a dense copse with a rustic gate, above which a threatening notice-board frowned them straight in the face, bearing the usual selfish and anti-social inscription, "Trespassers will be |
|


