“We always respect those who have means. If you have none, of course you can’t go on the spree anywhere, and oughtn’t to do so. It would be wrong and immoral. Take my advice, and call on the old schoolmaster. The parish will be pleased, as it has been terribly put about at the rector giving him his dismissal.”
“But--I thought there had been an unhappy scandal; that, in fact, he had been committed to”--
“Well, well, he was locked up,” said Pasco. “There was a cock-fight somewhere up country. Not in this country, but at a place called Waterloo.”
“There is no such place in England,” said Bramber. “Waterloo is in Belgium; it lies about five miles from Brussels.”
“You are a schoolmaster, and ought to know. But of this I am quite sure--it was in England where he got into trouble, and the name of the place was Waterloo.”
“He may have been at some inn called the Waterloo, but positively there is no place in England so designated,” said Bramber.
“I know very well the place was Waterloo, and that Mr. Solomon Puddicombe got into trouble there. We are all liable to troubles. I have lost my daughter. Troubles are sent us; the parson himself has said so. Puddicombe got locked up. You see, cock-fighting is a pursuit to which he was always very partial. You go and call on him, and he’ll sing you his song. It begins--
‘Come all you cock-fighters from far and near, I’ll sing you a cock match when and where, On Aspren Moor, as I’ve heard say, A charcoal black and a bonny bonny grey.’
That is how the song begins. But it is about another cock-fight; not that at Waterloo. Cock-fighting is Mr. Puddicombe’s pursuit. We have all got our pursuits, and why not? There’s a man just outside Newton is wonderful hot upon flowers. His garden is a picture; he makes it blaze with various kinds of the finest coloured--foreign and English plants: that’s his pursuit. Then there is a doctor at Teignmouth who goes out with a net catching butterflies, and he puts ale and treacle on the trees in the evening for catching moths: that’s his pursuit. And our parson likes dabbling with a brush and some paints: that’s his pursuit. And business is mine: that’s my pursuit and my pleasure--and it’s profit too.”
“Well, I don’t know what your pursuits be, Mr. Schoolmaster,” said Pepperill. “Let us hope they’re innocent as those of Mr. Puddicombe.”