"Not me. I'm no mumbudgetter. What you tell me I'll keep to myself."

Her eyes dwelt steadily on his. In a lower voice, she asked:

"Do you believe in fortune-telling, Mr. Yellam?"

"I don't know as I do. But I don't know as I don't."

"I do. And--maybe the Vicar wouldn't like this--I can tell fortunes myself with cards."

"Well, I never!"

"Yes. About three months ago, a lady came to Salisbury and lodged near us. She told fortunes with cards; she taught me. She didn't do it for money. Now, if you laugh, I'll never forgive you...."

Alfred became portentously solemn.

"The lady told me that I should marry a soldier."

Alfred looked perturbed, but his shrewd sense sustained him.

"Did she? Likely as not she'd seen you walking out with one."

"I have never walked out with a soldier."

Alfred looked unhappy. He thought of the well-set-up Highlander. He beheld Fancy hanging on his arm, gazing upward into a bronzed, devil-may-care face, listening to strange tales of the Orient. Jealousy ravaged him. His dejection deepened when he discovered that his tongue had lost the trick of speech. He yearned to speak lightly and facetiously about soldiers. But he could think of nothing better than this:

"Soldiers are soldiers."

Fancy read him easily. Her father distrusted soldiers, who loved and ran away. He had warned her against their beguilements. But Fancy had read English history, more intelligently than most girls of similar upbringing. She knew what soldiers had done for England. Also, she had eye for a bit of colour. Soldiers appealed to her imagination. She put sailors first, the jolly tars. Tommy came next, with his swagger cane, his jaunty walk, and his cap c.o.c.ked on one side, shewing a "quiff"

beneath.

"Why do men, like you, Mr. Yellam, despise soldiers?"

Alfred wriggled, impaled upon this barbed hook. He had wit enough to realise that serious issues impended. He might easily offend Fancy. And no answer rose pat to his tongue. Why did he despise soldiers? He was too honest to deny the indictment. Yes; he did despise soldiers. He answered stolidly:

"There are soldiers and soldiers. 'Tis sober truth, miss, that the best men in these parts don't enlist. The pay is bad, and the work hard. The wrong 'uns take the shilling only when they're driven to it. It may be different in Salisbury."

"I don't know that it is. I can understand why men like you, Mr. Yellam, don't enlist. Why should you? But that doesn't change my feelings about soldiers. Whatever they may have been, whatever they are, I think of this: At any moment, with their hard work, with their poor pay, they may be called upon to give their lives for--us."

Her soft voice faltered. Perhaps Alfred was already in love. He may have been. When her voice failed, and he beheld her for the first time as a woman of sensibilities, tender for others, pleading for the less fortunate, all that was best in him leaped into being. Nothing but his disability to find words for his thoughts prevented him from avowing his feelings. He realised instantly that here sat the girl for him, the wife he wanted. His experiments in courtship, if you could term it that, confirmed his conviction that he had remained single so long simply because Fancy was waiting for him. She was absolutely right because the others had been as absolutely wrong.

"That's true," he heard himself saying.

Fancy went on in a livelier tone:

"Have you read Kipling, Mr. Yellam?"

"I seem to have heard tell of Mr. Rudyard Kipling in the newspapers."

"I want to tell you what he said about soldiers."

She quoted slowly:

"It's Tommy this, and Tommy that, and Tommy--go away!

But it's--Thank you, Mr. Atkins, when the band begins to play."

Alfred was visibly impressed. He recalled the Highlander's words about war, such a war as he had never dreamed of. What if the band did begin to play? More, it surprised him that Fancy should quote Kipling.

Obviously, she had enjoyed educational advantages denied to him. She spoke like the quality. He began to measure the distance between them, conscious of shrinkage in himself. To gain time he repeated her last words:

"When the band begins to play! 'No Account Harry' spoke of that, yes, he did. But war is for kings and potentates, not for us. As I came along river, I says to myself: 'We have peace here, glory be to our n.o.ble Fleet!' It gives me a mort of comfort thinking of our mighty ships. And I remember what Parson said not so long ago. 'You working-men,' he says, 'are the backbone of England.' And, by Golly! I stiffened myself accordingly."

Fancy smiled, and said no more. She glanced at the pantry clock. Alfred rose. His face was redder than usual, as he held out his hand. It consoled him mightily to reflect that "No Account Harry," by virtue or vice of an unsavoury record, would hardly dare to stick his tip-tilted nose into the Vicarage.

"So long, Miss Fancy. Would it be called presumption, if I made so bold as to ask you to take the air with me next Sunday? 'Tis wonderful pretty in the Park, and I'd like to shew you the fat bullocks."

Fancy blushed, for he was squeezing her small hand.

"I should like it very much," she replied simply.

Alfred asked for no more, wise man! He had squeezed her hand, and she had not resented it, although her slim fingers lay calm and cool within his ardent clasp. She accompanied him to the back door. In the lapel of his jacket Alfred sported one of his mother's roses. He presented it to Fancy in silence--and fled. As he pa.s.sed into the park, intending to map out a pilgrimage for the following Sunday, he thought complacently:

"I'm a forcible man. Neighbours say that, and 'tis so. She's a d.i.n.ky maid, bless her!"

With eager strides he mounted the gentle slope of the long escarpment between Pomfret Vicarage and Pomfret Court, keeping to the right of the main drive. The path he followed meandered through a plantation.

Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of a pair of lovers strolling arm in crook, with love in their eyes and laughter on their lips. He recognised Lionel Pomfret and his bride. Alfred plunged into the hazels and let them pa.s.s. When the coast was clear he took the path again, skirting the Court and the Home Farm, and, ultimately, debouching upon the downs.

Warmed by his walk, he removed his hat and fanned himself with it. Then he sat down and let his eyes wander across the landscape.

How fair it was upon that midsummer's afternoon!

A soft haze slightly obscured the water meadows. Through it he could see the Avon, a silvery riband. In the far distance the finest spire in the world soared into palely blue skies. The breeze from the land had died down. Presently the breeze from the sea would stir, tremulously, the gra.s.ses at his feet. Sheep were grazing hard by. Some of them rested in the shade of the yews which fringed the top of the down. Immediately below him stretched the park. Under the clumps of beeches stood the fallow deer. Beyond were the lawns of Pomfret Court, flanked by ancient elms and oaks and horse-chestnuts. Between the ma.s.ses of translucent foliage, the facade of the house glowed faintly red as if the sunbeams penetrating the bricks during nearly four hundred years were now radiating from them.

All this to Alfred--and to how many others--was the outward and visible sign of peace, a peace sanctified by time and the labour of countless hands. That such a peace could be imperilled pa.s.sed the understanding of wiser men than the carrier. Surely it would endure till the end, till eternity.

For ever and ever--Amen!

CHAPTER III

INTRODUCING MRS. MUCKLOW

Susan Yellam rarely left her cottage, and, during week-days, was not too cordial to chance visitors. On Sunday afternoon, however, she was at home to friends, and hospitably glad to offer them the best cup of tea in Nether-Applewhite, and some hot b.u.t.tered toast which waited for n.o.body. If a too nice stomach disdained b.u.t.tered toast, the pangs of hunger could be alleviated with bread and honey (from the hives in the garden) or bread and jam (of Mrs. Yellam's own making). A rich cake was in cut.

Mrs. Yellam had been a Mucklow. And her favourite brother, Habakkuk, had married a Rockley--all of Nether-Applewhite. Mrs. Mucklow generally dropped in on Sunday afternoons, bringing a grievance with her. The Mucklows had not prospered like the Yellams and Rockleys. And this was the more remarkable because the Mucklow men were fine upstanding fellows, reasonably sober, and G.o.d-fearing Churchgoers. The ancients of the village affirmed that the brains of the family had been served out in one lump, and given to Susan Yellam.

Upon the Sunday following Alfred's visit to the Vicarage, Mrs. Mucklow, wearing black silk and a bonnet, dropped into the cottage. She was taller than her sister-in-law, and very thin. Invariably she disagreed with everything said by Mrs. Yellam, and yet, oddly enough, the two women remained friends, partly because Susan believed devoutly in the ties of blood, and partly because Jane's rather fatuous contradictions shed searchlights upon Susan's commonsense. Wisdom is comfortably bolstered by the folly of others.