The Summer of Sir Lancelot Read Free

he wanted the Rolls back.
    The surgeon was so deep in agreeable reflections on fish as he tramped down the path towards Witches‘ Pool that he nearly bowled over Millichap, his faithful gillie, gardener, chauffeur, handyman, and former theatre porter.
    ‘Ah, Millichap.‘ Sir Lancelot beamed. On such a delightful morning he radiated generosity like the men in the trading stamp advertisements. ‘I shan‘t be needing you on the river. Take the day off,‘ he invited handsomely.
    ‘That‘s very good of you, sir.‘ Millichap was a tall red-faced man whom twenty years in Sir Lancelot‘s service, unhooking fish and carrying from his presence such offensive items as amputated legs and fainting first-year students, had left with the look of rotund dignity seen in those really well-nourished Victorian bishops.
    ‘Not at all, Millichap, you deserve it. By the way,‘ Sir Lancelot recalled, ‘I believe Lady Spratt would like you to drop into Abergavenny with the Rolls first, to pick up the groceries.‘
    ‘As you say, sir.‘
    ‘And I suppose this afternoon those new flies will be ready in Brecon, if you‘ve an hour to spare to drive over and collect them.‘
    ‘Yes, sir.‘
    ‘And I mentioned, I believe, I may have guests to collect from Cardiff this evening? Good. Well — enjoy yourself.‘
    Millichap shifted his feet. ‘Will you be going to court tomorrow, sir?‘
    ‘Of course I shall. Car at the door by nine sharp, if you please. I say, is anything the matter?‘ He caught the man‘s eye. ‘Not a recurrence of the dyspepsia?‘
    ‘No, sir. I am burdened with a problem of a rather personal nature.‘
    ‘But you must let me share it!‘ Sir Lancelot offered heartily.
    ‘I fancy you may well,‘ ended Millichap gloomily, moving off through the undergrowth with a rich episcopal sigh.
    Sir Lancelot shrugged his shoulders. Arriving at Witches‘ Pool, he set up camp behind the hawthorn bush, detached a small butterfly net from somewhere on his knickerbocker suit, and danced excitedly with it for some minutes among the brambles.
    ‘Baetis bioculatus ,‘ he grunted, inspecting his catch with some surprise. ‘The pale watery olive.‘
    Selecting a pale watery olive from the buffet of flies on the peak of his deerstalker, he tell on his face. He inched towards the bank. The hands which had explored an army of abdomens gently parted the final tufts, and the eyes which had scanned half a million umbilicuses relaxed in watchful repose across the water. Sir Lancelot was waiting for Percival.
    Percival was the only local inhabitant for whom he had any affection. They‘d eyed each other on and off over the past few summers, but to Sir Lancelot‘s disappointment they had never met. Percival was the largest trout in the legends of the river — and believe me, those Welsh legends all come in Vistavision and Technicolor - who filled the surgeon‘s idle thoughts with the problem of his transference from the little backwater opposite to a glass case over the dining-room door. Sir Lancelot now lay on his stomach waiting excitedly for the plop like a hippopotamus leaving a bog, which would announce that Percival was coming up for his elevenses.
    The surgeon suddenly quivered all over. His face wrinkled like an animated walnut. You might have thought someone had connected him up to the mains. A yard away stood a little bird-faced man in gold-rimmed glasses, busy trying to sort out a tangle in his cast.
     

2
     
    ‘Ye gods,‘ muttered Sir Lancelot to himself, ‘what is the world coming to?‘
    He decided the beastly fellow was a straying guest of his neighbour, one of those pleasantly dotty admirals with which the Royal Navy so agreeably enriches the English countryside. The tongue would regretfully have to be substituted for the toecap.
    ‘Here, let me do that.‘
    Sir Lancelot rose with his rod from the camouflage.
    ‘Oh!‘ The little man jumped. Tm sorry. I thought you were some kind of animal.‘
    ‘The name is