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Surtees sat aghast, with his mouth open, and knew not how to say a word. Doctor Nupper rubbed his red nose. Reginald Morton attempted some suggestion about the wine which fell wretchedly flat. John Morton ventured to tell his friend that he did not understand the subject. "I shall be most happy to be instructed," said the Senator.
Runciman and Doctor Nupper. Captain Glomax had got into it and came up afterwards wet through, with temper by no means improved. But the glory of the day had been the way in which Lord Rufford's young bay mare, who had never seen a brook before, had flown over it with the Major on her back, taking it, as Larry afterwards described, "just in her stride, without condescending to look at it.
Even Larry Twentyman was present, who of late had kept himself aloof from all such meetings. Both the Botseys were there, and Nupper and Harry Stubbings, and Ribbs the butcher.
Making a circle, or the beginning of a circle, round the fire, were Nupper, the doctor, a sporting old bachelor doctor who had the reputation of riding after the hounds in order that he might be ready for broken bones and minor accidents; next to him, in another arm-chair, facing the fire, was Ned Botsey, the younger of the two brewers from Norrington, who was in the habit during the hunting season of stopping from Saturday to Monday at the Bush, partly because the Rufford hounds hunted on Saturday and Monday and on those days seldom met in the Norrington direction, and partly because he liked the sporting conversation of the Dillsborough Club.
Nupper were not slow to declare, that Dillsborough was the only place in England in which one might be sure that those articles had not been purchased. And on the Tuesday it began to be understood that Goarly had applied to Bearside, the other attorney, in reference to his claim against Lord Rufford's pheasants.
Mainwaring's little Dinner The company at the rector's house consisted of the Senator, the two Mortons, Mr. Surtees the curate, and old Doctor Nupper. Mrs. Mainwaring was not well enough to appear, and the rector therefore was able to indulge himself in what he called a bachelor party.
He did not as yet know the Senator well enough to fight with him at his own table, and could only groan and moan and look up at the ceiling. Doctor Nupper endeavoured to take away the sting by smacking his lips, and Reginald Morton, who did not in truth care a straw what he drank, was moved to pity and declared the claret to be very fine.
"There's no hurry with weather like this," said Nupper professionally. "They can't open the will till the late squire is buried," continued the innkeeper, "and there will be one or two very anxious to know what is in it" "I suppose it will all go to the man who lives up here at Hoppet Hall," said the Captain, "a man that was never outside a horse in his life!"
Nupper declared that he had never ridden over a fence till he was forty-five, and that he was ready now to ride Fred across country for a new hat. Larry suggested that a man might be a good friend to sport though he didn't ride much himself; and Runciman again asserted that hunting wasn't everything. Upon the whole Reginald was the favourite.
The conversation was carried on till Morton found himself constrained to say that though he entertained great personal respect for his guest he could not go with him again into society. He was ill at the time, though neither he himself knew it nor the Senator. On the next morning Mr. Gotobed returned to London without seeing his host, and before the day was over Mr. Nupper was at Morton's bedside.