He had had until recently the half thought out notion that he could go on as he was – that was to say as his father’s assistant and perhaps eventual successor – and somehow at the same time make his observations and pursue his reading and eventually come out with some theory or piece of original research which he would then publish. Lately it had been becoming clear to him that this was hardly realistic and that he was condemning himself to being always an amateur. But to go into that wider world – of the true nature of which he had only the vaguest notion, except in so far as he knew it must be wider, and must hold out for him the hope of something which he wanted badly and was in some way ashamed of wanting but which was really only that recognition which every talented person wants – to go out into that world which Sir Randolph was offering him by saying he would pay for his further education, would mean to desert his father, and to desert him in a manner a good deal more fundamental than the mere leaving him to find another boy to take on as assistant gamekeeper. It was a dilemma Dan did not want to have to face, and tried to think about as little as possible; but as he tapped with his stick on the trunks of the trees and from time to time emitted his own particular form of call, a sort of mild whoop such as cowmen sometimes use to call up cattle, his mind was on the dilemma rather than on his immediate task.

It was Tom Harker’s conversation with Charlie Pass and Albert Jarvis which had made him think of it. He disapproved of Tom, towards whom his sentiments were less tolerant even than his father’s, and a great deal less so than Sir Randolph’s. He was young and he thought that Tom was dishonest and a nuisance to his father and that was that. He also disliked being lectured by such a person on a subject about which he considered himself to know more, the habits of game – ‘a lesson in life’ as Tom called it – or on another subject on which he considered himself to be in no need of advice, the evils of drink. Those very characteristics which made Tom Harker in the eyes of Sir Randolph, and to a lesser extent even in those of Mr Glass, a ‘personality’, in Dan’s view of things simply showed him up as a sanctimonious hypocrite. To hear him in conversation with the other two, whose contributions seemed to Tom as antiquated and inappropriate as the old pump on the village green, induced in Dan an uncharacteristic mood of impatience and frustration. He must get away. But then again, no one should make him hurt his father.

Ellen was in the attic bedroom which she shared with the kitchen maid, tying up her black laced boots. She had finished clearing away the lunch in the servants’ hall and had two hours of free time before she needed to be back to change out of the blue and white gingham she wore in the mornings into her afternoon uniform of black dress and small white apron, in time to go round the bedrooms lighting the fires and drawing the curtains.