I pushed my way through the bushes. The going was sticky and took about eight and elevenpence off the value of my Sure-Grip tennis shoes in the first two yards: but I persevered and presently came out in the open and found myself in a sort of clearing facing the Octagon.
This building was run up somewhere in the last century, I have been told, to enable the grandfather of the late owner to have some quiet place out of earshot of the house where he could practise the fiddle. From what I know of fiddlers, I should imagine that he had produced some fairly frightful sounds there in his time: but they can have been nothing to the ones that were coming from the roof of the place now. The Right Hon. , not having spotted the arrival of the rescue-party, was apparently trying to make his voice carry across the waste of waters to the house; and I’m not saying it was not a good sporting effort. He had one of those highish tenors, and his yowls seemed to screech over my head like shells.
I thought it about time to slip him the glad news that assistance had arrived, before he strained a vocal cord.
“Hi!” I shouted, waiting for a lull.
He poked his head over the edge.
“Hi!” he bellowed, looking in every direction but the right one, of course.
“Hi!”
“Hi!”
“Hi!”
“Hi!”
“Oh!” he said, spotting me at last.