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hounds. "Not today. Ledger. I've read all the quotations."
Nobody was going to call me unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable.
    He actually nearly virtually smiled. Almost. "The major
must've thought you were a protester."
    "He should have asked." I eyed him with curiosity.
"Here, Ledger. You're around a lot these days, aren't you? For a corporal,
I mean."
    Amazingly he was amused. "Now, lad," he said benignly.
    "No, seriously. Fox hunts on your beat, are they?"
    "Ledger!" the hooliganess screamed, deprived of her arena massacre. "I demand—"
    "Says he's here by invitation, lady." To his credit
Ledger didn't give ground as she kicked her horse closer. Calmly he struck a
match on his coat, to my unbounded admiration, and the beast nervously edged
off. The bird lashed the poor thing, furious. It skittered, eyes whitening in
worry. I really felt sorry for it. We losers share empathy. "Miss
Can-dice, meet Lovejoy. He's unscrupulous, a consort of thieves, and in my view
certifiably insane."
    Civilization waited. Then, "Lovejoy?" she said.
    "How do," I said, still trying to be friends.
    Ledger swiveled to point at the big house. He'd made up his mind.
"Up that footpath, Lovejoy, you'll see signs To The Restaurant. The lady'll be there."
    "You sure. Ledger?" I asked. "Only, that silly
sod—"
    Ledger didn't even glance at the major, who was hunching his slow
way along the fenced drive, a paradigm for us all. "The constable will
accompany you to ensure your safe arrival, Lovejoy."
    "Am I still under arrest. Ledger?"
    "You misunderstood the constable's phraseology," Ledger
said, getting in his car. The police have this knack of losing
responsibilities. "Call in sometime. I'd like a chat. 'Morning." He
was tipping his hat as the police driver left us a cloud of pollutant. The slur
was unmistakable. Miss Candice glared at me. I shrugged, carefully keeping
Geoffrey's stolid mass between the bird and me, and went over to Podge Howarth,
who obviously felt sheepish being spotted among this lot.
    "Wotcher, Podge," I said blithely. "Ta for helping
me when the Cossacks came." A number of protesters grinned and slapped my
shoulders admiringly. A gray-eyed girl in camp-follower attire—shredded jeans,
dirty pullover knitted from wholemeal, bark sandals—kissed me and awarded me
some poor flower she'd dragged from its bed in the interests of conversation. A
button-badge begged Call Me Enid!
    "Wotcher, Lovejoy. Didn't know it was you or I'd have—"
    "Oh, aye." I kept pace with his trudging circle. Finding
him among a mob of peace-loving proearth antihunt protesters is like a frog in fruit— something with
no immediate explanation. I mean, I don't care for hunting either, because I
always feel like the fox, never the hunter. But that doesn't set me off
rioting, usually because I'm being hunted elsewhere. Now, Podge is a laugh. He
makes Roman bronze door keys, always has scores buried in his little garden
aging. With the soft bronze he uses—his cousin's a Birmingham car dealer—a
lovely antique-looking patina takes about a year to develop in a good (meaning
bad) summer. A dry hot midyear like we'd just had is murder to a bronze forger.
"Look, Podge," I said. "What's going on? The whole Eastern Hundreds're going frigging barmy."
    He became even shiftier. "Dunno, Lovejoy."
    Puzzled, I halted to inspect the demonstration. You can tell when
a bloke's following a bird, can't you. Nodding and beaming as they trogged , I watched them once round to make sure there was
no married lady whose eyes wavered in guilt. Was Podge Howarth littering our
countryside for sordid sex, or something nearer to his avaricious heart? Yes,
he was grinning fatuously at the gray-eyed flower-giver Enid, and her with a
wedding ring. Tut-tut. Satisfied, I turned to my police escort.
    "Right, Geoffrey," I said resignedly. "Fancy a
walk?"
     
    Me and Geoffrey went up the path chatting about my fellow villager
Raymond, currently on remand for trying to pull the old fiddle