“Wait a bit, sir, wait a bit. ’Bain’t so simple as all that. These yurr two young folks no sooner meets again than my Will sets his heart, burning strong and powerful, on Decima Moore. Eaten up with love from time he sets eyes on her, was Will, and hell-bent to win her. She come back with radical notions same as his own, and that’s a bond atween ’em from the jump. Her folks don’t fancy my Will, however, leastways not her mother, and they don’t fancy her views neither, and worst of all they lays blame on Will. Old Jim Moore comes down yurr and has a tell with me, saying life’s not worth living up to Farm with Missus at him all day and half night to put his foot down and stop it. That’s how it was after you left last year, sir, and that’s how ’tis still. Will burning to get tokened and wed, and Dessy—”

“Yes?” asked Watchman as Abel paused and looked fixedly at the ceiling. “What about Decima?”

“That’s the queerest touch of the lot, sir,” said Abel.

Watchman, lighting his pipe, kept his eye on his host and saw that he now looked profoundly uncomfortable.

“Well?” Watchman repeated.

“It be what she says about wedlock,” Abel muttered.

“What does she say?” asked Watchman sharply.

“ ’Be shot if she haven’t got some new-fangled notion about wedlock being no better than a name for savagery. Talks wild trash about freedom. To my way of thinking the silly maiden don’t know what she says.”

“What,” asked Watchman, “does Will say to all this?”

“Don’t like it. The chap wants to be tokened and hear banns read like any other poor toad, for all his notions. He wants no free love for his wife or himself. He won’t talk to me, not a word; but Miss Dessy does, so open and natural as a daisy. Terrible nonsense it be, I tells her, and right-down dangerous into bargain. Hearing her chatter, you might suppose she’ve got some fancy-chap up her sleeve. Us knows better, of course, but it’s an uncomfortable state of affairs and seemingly no way out. Tell you what, sir, I do blame this Legge for the way things are shaping. Will’d have settled down. He was settling down, afore Bob Legge came yurr. But now he’ve stirred up all their revolutionary notions again, Miss Dessy’s along with the rest. I don’t fancy Legge. Never have. Not for all he’m a masterpiece with darts. My way of thinking, he’m a cold calculating chap and powerful bent on having his way. Well, thurr ’tis, and talking won’t mend it.”

Watchman walked to the door and Abel followed him. They stood looking up the road to Coombe Tunnel.

“Dallybuttons!” exclaimed Abel. “Talk of an angel and there she be. That’s Miss Dessy, the dinky little dear, coming in to do her marketing.”

“So it is,” said Watchman. “Well, Abel, on second thoughts I believe I’ll go and have a look at that picture.”

iii

But Watchman did not go directly to Coombe Rock. He lingered for a moment until he had seen Decima Moore go in at the post office door, and then he made for the tunnel. Soon the darkness swallowed him, his footsteps rang hollow on the wet stone floor, and above him, a luminous disc, shone the top entry. Watchman emerged, blinking, into the dust and glare of the high road. To his left the country rolled gently away to Illington, to his right a path led round the cliffs to Coombe Rock, and then wound inland to Cary Edge Farm where the Moores lived.

He arched his hand over his eyes, and on Coombe Head could make out the shape of canvas and easel with Cubitt’s figure moving to and fro, and beyond, a tiny dot which must be Sebastian Parish’s head. Watchman left the road, climbed the clay bank, circled a clump of furze, and beneath a hillock from where he could see the entrance to the tunnel, he lay full length on the short turf. With the cessation of his own movement the quiet of the countryside engulfed him. At first the silence seemed complete but after a moment or two the small noises of earth and sky welled up into his consciousness. A lark sang above his head with a note so high that it impinged upon the outer borders of hearing and at times soared into nothingness. When he turned and laid his ear to the earth it throbbed with the faraway thud of surf against Coombe Rock and when his fingers moved in the grass it was with a crisp stirring sound. He began to listen intently, lying so still that no movement of his body could come between his sense and more distant sound. He closed his eyes and to an observer he would have seemed to sleep. Indeed, his face bore that look of inscrutability which links sleep in our minds with death. But he was not asleep. He was listening; and presently his ears caught a new rhythm, a faint hollow beat. Someone was coming up through the tunnel.

Watchman looked through his eyelashes and saw Decima Moore step into the sunlight. He remained still while she mounted the bank to the cliff path. She rounded the furzebush and was almost upon him before she saw him. She stood motionless.

“Well, Decima,” said Watchman and opened his eyes.

“You startled me,” she said.

“I should leap to my feet, shouldn’t I? And apologize?”

“You needn’t trouble. I’m sorry I disturbed you. Goodbye.” She moved forward.

Watchman said: “Wait a moment, Decima.”

She hesitated. Watchman reached out a hand and seized her ankle.

“Don’t do that,” said Decima. “It makes us both look silly. I’m in no mood for dalliance.”

“Please say you’ll wait a moment and I’ll behave like a perfect little gent. I’ve something serious to say to you.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I promise you. Of the first importance. Please.”

“Very well,” said Decima.

He released her and scrambled to his feet.

“Well, what is it?” asked Decima.

“It’ll take a moment or two. Do sit down and smoke a cigarette. Or shall I walk some of the way with you?”

She shot a glance at the distant figures on Coombe Head and then looked at him. She seemed ill at ease, half-defiant, half-curious.

“We may as well get it over,” she said.

“Splendid. Sit down now, do. If we stand here, we’re in full view of anybody entering or leaving Ottercombe, and I don’t want to be interrupted. No, I’ve no discreditable motive. Come now.”

He sat down on the hillock under the furze-bush and after a moment’s hesitation she joined him.

“Will you smoke? Here you are.”

He lit her cigarette, dug the match into the turf and then turned to her.

“The matter I wanted to discuss with you,” he said, “concerns this Left Movement of yours.”

Decima’s eyes opened wide.

“That surprises you?” observed Watchman.

“It does rather,” she said. “I can’t imagine why you should suddenly be interested in the C. L. M.”

‘I’ve no business to be interested,“ said Watchman, ”and in the ordinary sense, my dear Decima, I am not interested. It’s solely on your account — no, do let me make myself clear. It’s on your account that I want to put two questions to you. Of course if you choose you may refuse to answer them.”

Watchman cleared his throat, and pointed a finger at Decima.

“Now in reference to this society—”

“Dear me,” interrupted Decima with a faint smile. “This green plot shall be our court, this furze-bush our witness-box; and we will do in action as we will do it before the judge.”

“A vile paraphrase. And if we are to talk of midsummer-night’s dreams, Decima—”

“We certainly won’t do that,” she said, turning very pink. “Pray continue your cross-examination, Mr. Watchman.”

“Thank you, my lord. First question: is this body— society, club, movement or whatever it is — an incorporated company?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means among other things, that the books would have to be audited by a chartered accountant.”

“Good Heavens, no. It’s simply grown up, largely owing to the efforts of Will Pomeroy and myself.”