'Struck the right chord there, Dean old boy,' said Pimpole with a hideous wink. 'And don't you worry about your mutton. Old Sam's been into Betty more times than he has sheep and anyway he likes them live with their fur coats still on. I only said it to rile Fred.'

'By the sound of things you have succeeded only too well,' said the Dean. All the same, with my ulcer…'

'Of course, your bloody old ulcer. Got to do something about that, haven't we? Now Mummy always used to say peppermint…' Pimpole leaned right across the bar and seized a bottle of crème de menthe and a large wineglass.

'For God's sake stop,' shouted the Dean as Pimpole began to pour. 'You can't be serious. After that half pint of gin?'

Pimpole ignored him. He had filled the wine glass and spilt some of the crème de menthe on the bar. 'Now look what you've made me do,' he said accusingly.

'I didn't make you do anything,' the Dean protested. 'And I'm damned if I'm going to drink that bloody stuff. And don't-'

'Come on now, there's a good Deanie boy, take Mummy's lovely medicine like a good little man and tum-tum will feel much better.'

'It bloody well won't. Take the stuff away from me. I detest it. And what is more, I detest this beastly pub of yours. You can stay here if you want to but I am going home.'

'Where the fucking heart is,' said Pimpole and drank the schooner of crème de menthe as the Dean, no longer caring what the wall-eyed dog did to him, marched out of the pub, stepping on the animal's tail as he went. Outside he looked around for his car and was about to get into it when he spotted a police car with two policemen in it watching him. The Dean veered away from his car and tried to walk unconcernedly down the road in the hope of finding a hotel or at least a Bed & Breakfast to spend the night in. There wasn't one.

'Only the pub,' a man he stopped to ask told him. 'The Leg of Lamb. But I wouldn't recommend it. Used to be The Pimpole Arms but they had to change it on account of His Lordship's habits. Sheep, you know. Some of these old families go a bit queer.'

'I've gathered that,' said the Dean and, adding sheep to the addictions of Jeremy Pimpole, walked on disconsolately in the direction of Pimpole Hall and the gamekeeper's cottage. It was not a pleasant journey. The cottage lay a mile and a half from the village and the muddy lane was not lit. Only the moon helped and then only fitfully, most of the time being hidden behind clouds. In the hedges on either side of the lane night creatures went about their business and somewhere an owl hooted. In the ordinary way the Dean wouldn't have minded quite so much, but the mixture of gin and beer and the awful atmosphere in the pub where so much latent violence had been almost palpable, not to mention Pimpole's sudden changes of mood, had frayed the Dean's nerves so that every sound startled him and every dark shadow filled him with alarm. Cursing himself for not having tried to find a taxi, though it was almost certain the village didn't have one, and cursing himself even more for having come to see Pimpole in the first instance, the Dean trudged on, stopping every now and again to listen. He could have sworn he had caught snatches of the Porterhouse Boating Song waited on the night air from the direction of the village. The third time he stopped there was no doubt about it. The words were clear now. 'Bump, bump, bump, bump the boat before us. Bump, bump, bump, join the jolly chorus. There ain't no boat, there ain't no boat, there ain't no boat before us, So all drink up and off we'll go to Hobson's Conduit whorehouse.'

Again, in the ordinary way the Dean would have found pleasure in the sound of that old song-which he had heard so many times, and sung himself in his youth, though he had never known where Hobson's Conduit whorehouse had been and had supposed that in years gone by it might have been at The Little Rose opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum. But now in the darkness-it had begun to rain-and in the knowledge that the man singing it had added a very large wineglass filled with crème de menthe to his first Dog's Nose and had probably had another 'for the road' and that this foul-tempered man was accompanied by a large wall-eyed dog on whose tail the Dean had stepped only half an hour before, the sound of the song held no magic for him. None whatsoever. It merely served to cause the Dean to fear for his immediate future. For a moment, a long moment, he considered sleeping out under the hedge or in a haystack but they didn't make convenient haystacks any more and anyway it was still raining and the Dean had no intention of dying of pneumonia under some hedge. Perhaps if he hid and let the drunken Pimpole go past the brute might fall asleep and allow him to sneak up to his room…

The Dean found a gateway and was about to scramble over-the damned gate was locked-when he discovered it was also topped by barbed wire. With a muttered curse he turned and hurried on until he reached a dark copse to his right and, scrambling down into the ditch and then dragging himself painfully into the hedge itself, tried to blend in with a holly tree which seemed suitably black. The sound of Pimpole's ghastly voice was quite close now and he was singing a revoltingly rustic song, an adaptation of 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm' so filthy that the Dean began to wonder about Pimpole's relationship with that beastly dog, and concluded that no animal could possibly be safe in his presence. Unfortunately the wall-eyed dog had similar feelings about the Dean and, while Pimpole staggering up the lane might well have mistaken the Dean in his black suit for part of the holly tree, the dog's nose knew better. The dog stopped and peered into the darkness and growled. Pimpole halted and peered too.

'Some fucking thing in there,' he mumbled. 'Better go have a look at it.' He came forward and the Dean decided the only thing to do was to come out of the hedge as gracefully as he could.

'It's only me, Jeremy old chap,' he called, and stepped away from the holly and fell headlong into the ditch. It was, he was quick to discover, a ditch in which stinging nettles grew in profusion. In his agony the Dean got on all fours and looked up at the swaying figure of Pimpole silhouetted against the drifting clouds.

'What the fuck are you doing down there?' Pimpole asked. 'And anyway what gives you the right to call me "Jeremy old chap"! I'm Lord Pimpole to you, and don't you forget it. And who the hell are you?'

'I'm the Dean, you know the Dean of Porterhouse, Jeremy dear…'

'Lord Pimpole to you,' Pimpole yelled and called the dog, 'Scab, Scab go fetch!'

But the Dean had had enough, enough of the stinging nettles, of the ditch, of Pimpole, of the whole bloody situation, and he had not the slightest intention of being fetched by that filthy dog. He scrambled to his feet and shot out of the ditch and was only stopped from falling flat on his face in the lane by Pimpole who caught him in his arms.

'Hold hard there,' he yelled. 'Steady the Buffs. No need to take off like a scalded bloody cat. Why, my goodness gracious me, if it isn't the Dean. My dear fellow, what on earth were you doing in that ditch? I mean one's heard of hedge priests and all that sort of thing but I've never seen you in that role, old fellow-me-lad. Marrying someone down there, were you? What a rum show.' And breathing crème de menthe, gin and draught beer fumes in the Dean's face he put his arm through his and off they staggered together towards the cottage. Behind them, disappointed by the missed opportunity to get its own back for its stepped-on tail, slouched the dog. But at least Pimpole had regained some of his old warmth and friendliness, probably due to a second or even a third Dog's Nose. He was obviously very drunk indeed and waxing maudlin.

'Don't know what the fuck the country's come to, Dean my old dear,' he said, practically weeping. 'Gone to the dogs Not that I mind dogs. Love the little buggers. And the big ones too, of course. Irish Wolfhounds. Lovely beasts. Knew a chap in Spain who bred them. Bloody good judge of a dog. Didn't much care for me though. Can't think why. I'm not a bad sort of dog, am I Dean?'