"A thing that puzzles me," said the witch, taking advantage of an emotional pause while one violin was wheezing a very long small note by itself, "is why only ugly songs are really persistent. Haven't you noticed, for instance, that a peac.o.c.k, or a cat on the wall, or a baby with a tin trumpet, will give their services most generously for hours on end, while a robin on a snowy tree, or a nightingale, or a fairy----"

She was interrupted by a scuffling sound in the umbrella-stand, and Harold the Broomstick, after a moment's rather embarra.s.sing entanglement with a b.u.t.terfly net, approached, panting.

"I must go," said the witch. "I bet you twopence we shall have some fun to-night. Sarah Brown, I'll come back and fetch you when it's all over."

Lady Arabel and Sarah Brown crossed the road to the church, Richard following a few yards behind.

"I'm afraid my little dinner-party wasn't a great success," said Lady Arabel confidentially. "Rrchud and Angela didn't get that good talk on occult subjects as Meta Ford said they would. Of course Rrchud, as you noticed, was dretfully restless and lighthearted; all boys are like that for the first few hours of their leave. He is naturally of a quiet disposition, though you wouldn't think it from to-night."

There was a distant blot of gunfire on the air, just as they reached the door of the crypt. The very stout dog of the Vicar (are not all reverend dogs fat?) was waiting there with a bored look.

"The Vicar allows no animals inside the crypt. So hard on Mrs. Perry's canary which has fits. I was here once when the Vicar's youngest son brought in a rabbit under his coat. A dretful scene, my dear."

That district of London happened to be rather a courageous one. The inhabitants felt that if the War had to be brought home to them, common politeness dictated that it should find them at home. There were not more than a dozen people in the crypt therefore. Most of them were old ladies from the district's less respectable quarter, knitting. The Vicar was trying to press comfort upon them, but without much success, for they were all quite content, discussing the deaths in their families.

The noise of gunfire was coming nearer, shaking the ground like the uneven tread of a drunken giant. Sarah Brown concentrated on an evening newspaper, busily reading again and again one of those columns of confidential man-to-man advertis.e.m.e.nt, which everybody reads with avidity while determining the more never to buy the article advertised.

But presently the fidgeting hands of Richard caught her eye, and she looked at him. He was sitting next to his mother on a stone step. He seemed to be in a quieter mood and attempted no manifestation. Sarah Brown thought he was suppressing excitement, however, and indeed he presently said: "I say, won't it be fun lying about all this to posterity and Americans, and other defenceless innocents."

Opposite to them, on two campstools, sat a young bridling mother of fifty, with her old hard daughter of sixteen or so. Hard was that daughter in every way; you would have counted her age in winters, not in summers, so obviously untender were her years. An iron plait of hair lay for about six inches down her spine; her feet and ankles made the campstool on which she sat, looking pathetically ethereal. Of such stuff as this is the backbone of England made, which is perhaps why the backbone of England sometimes seems so sadly inflexible.

There was a screeching noise outside, followed by an incredible crash.

It seemed to cleave a bottomless abyss between one second and the next, so that one seemed to be conscious for the first time in an astonished and astonishing world.

Lady Arabel said: "Boys will be boys, of course I know, but really this is going a little too far. Pinehurst's one hobby was his windows."

The campstooled mother gave a luxurious little shriek as soon as the crash was safely over. "The villains," she said kittenishly. "Aiming at places of worship as usual. I am absolutely paralysed with terror. Mary, darling, I don't believe you turned a hair."

"Pas un cheval," replied her firm daughter, in not unnatural error. One could easily see that she was beloved at home, and one wondered why.

The sound of the guns seemed only a negative form of sound after the bomb, and clearly above the firing could be heard a howl. The Vicar's dog, still howling, ran into the crypt.

"RUPERT!" said the Vicar, in a terrible voice, interrupting himself in the middle of a cheering plat.i.tude. But he had no time to say anything more, for behind Rupert came a procession of perhaps a dozen people, all dressed in sheets. Everybody saw at one pitiful glance that these were unfortunate householders, so suddenly roused from oblivion as to forget all their ordinary suburban dignity, probably barely escaping from ruined homes with their lives and a sheet each. There was a very old man, a middle-aged spinster, and then an enormous group of children of ages varying from two months to twenty years, followed by their parents, teachers, or guardians.

A nearer gun began to fire, and one of the old ladies on the other side of the crypt suddenly threw down her knitting and began confessing her sins. "Ow, I shall go to 'ell," she shouted dramatically. "I bin sich a wicked ol' woman. I nearly done in me first ol' man by biffin' the chopper at 'is n.o.b, and Lawd, the lies I bin an' tol' me second only yesterday."

"This is indeed a solemn moment," said the sheeted spinster sitting down beside Lady Arabel. "I hope I am meeting it in a proper spirit, but of course one is still only human, and naturally nervous. I have learned my statement by heart."

"What statement?" asked Lady Arabel, who was rather deeply engrossed in turning the heel of the sock she was knitting.

"The statement I shall make when the sheep are divided from the goats."

"Oh, come, come," said kind Lady Arabel. "Things are not so bad as that, surely. You must not be so dretfully pessimistic."

"You mistake me," said the sheeted lady, bridling. "There is, I am confident, no cause whatever for pessimism on my part. I have no misgivings as to the verdict. But not being used to courts of law, I thought it best to learn my statement, as I say, by heart."

The old knitter had been rather annoyed to find her confession interrupted. "A wicked ol' woman I may be," she said with more dignity.

"But I'll never regret givin' that b.l.o.o.d.y speshul a bit o' me mind this mornin' when 'e turned saucy to the sugar queue. I ses to 'im----"

"We all have our faults," Lady Arabel's neighbour broke in. "But I think, at this solemn moment, I may feel thankful that hastiness of recrimination was never one of mine. All my life I have made it an unalterable rule never to make a statement without first asking myself: Is it _TRUE_? Is it _JUST_? Is it _KIND_?"

"You may well say so," replied Lady Arabel pleasantly. "I only wish the younger generation would follow your example. Nowadays it is much more likely to be: Is it true? No. Is it just? No. Is it kind? No. Is it _FUNNY_? Yes. And out it comes."

"Be that as it may," said the ladylike creature. (One could see she was a Real Lady even through the sheet. Obviously she read the _Morning Post_ daily.) "Be that as it may, perhaps you can help me in one little matter which is intriguing me slightly even at this solemn moment. Do you suppose the sheep will be allowed to hear the trial of the goats, or will the court be cleared? I must say I should be so interested to hear the defence of the late churchwarden who eloped with----"

"Ah, please, please," said Lady Arabel, "don't talk in that dretful way.

Don't let your mind dwell on the worst. I a.s.sure you that you will be all right."

"Of course I shall be all right, as you put it," said the elderly lady, coldly drawing herself up. "Everybody can be my witness that I have kept my candle burning in my small corner----"

"Good gracious," shrieked the kittenish mother. "A candle burning to-night. And probably unshaded. Don't you know that those fiends in the sky are always on the watch for the slightest illumination?"

"Fiends in the sky!" exclaimed the sheeted lady. "Do you mean to say they are abroad even at this solemn moment?"

"Oh, don't talk such rot," implored the hard flapper. "Who the d.i.c.kens do you suppose was responsible for that crash?"

"Responsible for the crash!" said the other, whose tones were becoming more and more alive with exclamation marks. "Is then the solemn work of summoning us entrusted to the minions of the Evil One?"

A series of crashes interrupted her, the work of the adjacent gun. The earth shook, and each report was followed by the curious ethereal wail of sh.e.l.ls on their way.

"What, again?" exclaimed Lady Arabel's sheeted neighbour. "I should have thought one would have been ample. But still, one cannot be too careful, and some people are heavy sleepers. I heard the first myself without any possibility of mistake, and rose at once, though the slab lay heavy on my chest----"

"Most unwise," said Lady Arabel, "to touch that sort of thing late at night. I always have a little Benger myself."

Sarah Brown happened to look at Richard. His eyes were shut, but he was smiling very broadly with tight lips, and his face was turned towards the ceiling. His fingers were very tense and busy on his lap, as though he were still fidgeting with magic. But her study of him was interrupted by the loud denouncing voice of the very venerable man who had led the procession of late-comers.

"A dog in this hallowed place," he said, pointing at the deeply disconcerted Rupert who was weaving himself nervously in and out of his master's legs. "Never in all the forty years of my ministration here have I allowed such an outrage----"

"Gently, gently, my dear sir," protested the Vicar, a little roused. "I am the minister of this church, and the dog is mine. I was indeed about to turn it out when you entered, after which I lost sight of it for a moment. Rupert, go home."

Rupert howled again, and lay down as if about to faint.

"Forty years have I been Vicar of this parish," said the veteran, "and never----"

"What?" interrupted the Vicar, "Forty years Vicar of this parish. Then you must be Canon Burstley-Ripp. How very extraordinary, I always understood that he pa.s.sed away quite ten years ago."

He approached the old man and strove to b.u.t.ton-hole him. The sheet at first foiled him in this intention, but he presently contented himself with seizing a little corner of it, by which he led his aged brother vicar into a corner. There they could be heard for some time misunderstanding each other in low earnest tones.

"Ow, what a wicked ol' woman I bin an' bin," suddenly burst forth again the repentant knitter. "I bin an' stole 'arf a pound o' sugar off of the Eelite 'Atshop where I does a bit o' cleanin'. Ef I get out o' this alive, I swear I'll repay it an 'undredfold--that is ef I can get that much awf me sugar card...."

Sarah Brown was becoming sleepy. A blankness was invading her mind, and the talk in the crypt seemed to lose its meaning, and to consist chiefly of S's. She pondered idly on the family of children with their elders, all of whom were now studying each other with a certain look of disillusionment. It was a group whose relationships were difficult to make out, the ages of many of the children being unnaturally approximate. There seemed to be at least seven children under three years old, and yet they all bore a strong and regrettable family likeness. Several of the babies would hardly have been given credit for having reached walking age, yet none had been carried in. The woman who seemed to imagine herself the mother of this rabble was distributing what looked like hurried final words of advice. The father with a pensive eye was obviously trying to remember their names, and at intervals whispering to a man apparently twenty years his senior, whom he addressed as Sonny. It was all very confusing.

A long dim stretch of time seemed to have pa.s.sed when suddenly the note of a bugle sprang out across s.p.a.ce. Somehow the air at once felt cooler and more wholesome, the sound of the All-clear had something akin to the sight of the sun after a thunderstorm, lighting up a crouching whipped world.

"The Trump at last," said Lady Arabel's garrulous neighbour, rising with alacrity, and twitching her sheet into more becoming folds. "I was just wondering----"

But at that moment the two Vicars approached, and the elder one, including both the spinster and the mysterious family in one glance, spoke in a clerical yet embarra.s.sed voice.

"Dear friends, a slight but inconvenient mistake has occurred, and I am afraid I must ask you to submit blindly to my guidance in a matter strangely difficult to explain, even as I--myself in much confusion--bow to the advice of my reverend friend here. It would be out of place----"