He awoke some time later with a start, and lay for a moment, straining his ears, wondering what had caused the sound that had awakened him. He could hear the magpies scolding in the distance, and a lark chiming in the sky high above, but what be had heard was an extraordinary gurgling splashing noise. He sat up and looked around in alarm. Rosy was nowhere to be seen. The most terrible thoughts immediately filled Adrian’s mind: where had the gone? Was she terrorising some unfortunate cottager? Or, and he blanched at the thought, had she found a public house? He leapt to his feet and glanced around wildly.
From the cool depths of the river rose a sudden silvery fountain of spray, and Rosy surfaced. She was lying on her side in the deep water, and her normally grey hide was now black and shiny. She lay there, wallowing in ecstasy, occasionally putting her trunk under the water and blowing a series of reverberating bubbles. Filled with relief at having located her, Adrian walked down to the edge of the river, and Rosy gave a little squeak of pleasure at seeing him.
“Well, you are a clever girl,” said Adrian. “Are you enjoying that . . . having a lovely bath, eh?”
By way of an answer Rosy shifted from her right side to her left, creating a tidal wave, and almost disappearing beneath the surface of the water.
“D’you know, old girl, I’ve half a mind to join you,” said Adrian. “It looks wonderful.”
He looked round furtively to make sure there was no one watching, and then quickly removed his clothes, retaining only his underpants for decency’s sake. Uttering a piercing yell, he raced across the grass and leapt into the river. The water was icy cold but refreshing. He rose, spluttering, splashed his way over to where Rosy lay, and climbed on to her shoulder. Rosy gave a delighted squeak and, reaching up with her trunk, gently touched his face and wet hair.
“Glorious,” said Adrian, patting Rosy on the ear. “Simply glorious. What an extremely good idea of yours, Rosy. What a sagacious, what an intelligent creature you are!”
He got precariously to his feet and proceeded to do a dance on Rosy’s recumbent form, shouting “Glorious, simply glorious!” at intervals, until his feet slipped from under him and he fell with a splash into the river. As he rose choking and laughing to the surface, Rosy, gazing at him affectionately from her tiny bright eyes, squirted him with a trunkful of water. So for the next half hour they gambolled in the stream, to the extreme alarm of the coots and moorhens, and the annoyance of a kingfisher who had a nest in the bank nearby.
“The next village we come to,” said Adrian as they hauled themselves dripping out of the river and lay down on the bank, “the very next village we come to, I shall buy a large scrubbing brush. And then I shall scrub you, Rosy my girl, until you’re a lovely clean elephant.”
Tired by their activities, they lay on the bank dozing, while the sun dried them. They were lying there so quietly that the fox had crossed the whole meadow and was quite close to them before they noticed him.
“Hello,” said Adrian sitting up. “You’re a fine fellow.” The fox stopped, one foot raised, its ears pricked. Then Rosy flapped her ears and stretched forward an enquiring trunk. The fox, uttering a sharp yap of alarm, jumped backwards and, turning sharply, ran down the river bank, plunged into the water and swam swiftly to the opposite bank. He hauled himself out of the water, shook himself vigorously, and with a baleful glance in the direction of Adrian and Rosy, disappeared into the hedge.
“Well, he wasn’t very friendly, was he, Rosy?” said Adrian. “Not a convivial sort of chap at all.”
He was just about to give Rosy a short but comprehensive lecture on foxes when they heard the hunt.
“Oh, Lord,” gasped Adrian, who had quite forgotten that he was only wearing his underpants. “Here . . . quick I must get some clothes on.”
He leapt to his feet and started running to where he had left his clothes, draped neatly over the shafts of the trap, but he was too late. Through the one gap in the tall hedge that surrounded the field poured the hunt, a brown and white cascade of hounds, moaning and howling excitedly, closely followed by a mass of red-coated huntsmen and women on beautiful prancing horses as bright and shiny as chestnuts. As a predicament it left practically nothing to be desired, Adrian decided. To be caught by what was, presumably, the aristocracy of the district in a large meadow accompanied by an elephant and a multi-coloured pony trap was eccentric enough, but when you were only wearing your underpants the whole thing became fraught with difficulty.
To make matters worse Rosy, refreshed from her swim, suddenly became very animated at the sight of the hunt. It may be that the shrill whinnying of the hunting horn was mistaken by her for the shrill cries of another elephant, or maybe the great wave of hounds, the scarlet tunics and the general air of bustling festivity, recalled to her mind the happy days she had spent with the circus. Uttering a loud and prolonged trumpet of joy, she scrambled to her feet and shambled across the meadow to meet the, hunt.
The hounds, to a dog, skidded to an astonished halt. From their expressions you could tell that they thought this was unfair. They had been asked to chase and catch a small, red animal, and there, suddenly materialising in their path, was a monstrous grey animal such as one only dreams about in nightmares when one is a very young puppy. Simultaneously, all the bright shiny horses caught sight of Rosy. The effect on them was much the same as it had been on the plodding horses that pulled hansom cabs, and in a moment the meadow looked like an exceptionally bloody battlefield. Huntsmen fell like autumn leaves and lay sprawled in their scarlet coats on the grass, while riderless horse panic-stricken, galloped wildly to and fro, seeking a way out of the meadow through the thick hedge that surrounded it.
Rosy was delighted. She was, by now, under the firm impression that this was some sort of a circus, and that this pandemonium was all part of the act. Trumpeting excitedly, she pursued the terrified pack of hounds round and round, occasionally pausing to pat a maddened horse on the rump with her trunk. Adrian, cowering behind the trunk of a tree in his wet underpants, wished he was dead. This was far worse than anything that had gone before, and what made it worse was the fact that Rosy was so obviously enjoying herself and joining in with an exuberance that was diverting, to say the least.
In Rosy’s circus days she had been wont to end her performance with a mock assault on the ringmaster, for part of her act was a pretended animosity between that exalted personage and herself. As the hounds had now disappeared through the hedge, and all the horses were gathered in the far corner of the field in a quivering, hysterical mass, Rosy came to the not unnatural conclusion that the act had ended. Searching around her with a rheumy eye her glance chanced to fall on the Master of the hunt. He was rolling about on the grass, covered with mud, endeavouring to wrench off his top hat which had been wedged firmly down over his nose by his fall. This, thought Rosy, must be the ringmaster. It was a pardonable mistake, for the Master was a fine, corpulent specimen of manhood, wearing the mud-stained remains of a brilliant coat and a top hat. Rosy shambled towards him, paused to utter a shrill trumpeting, and then curled her trunk tenderly around his body and lifted him high in the air. She paused for a moment, obviously faintly surprised that her action did not provoke the roar of applause that it normally did.