“Soldiers,” said William, with the orthodox accent of contempt—following with a pleasure he would not for worlds have admitted the sinuous windings of the troop. There is in the orderly movement of men an attraction which few can resist; it appealed even to his elementary sense of the rhythmic, and he, like Griselda, bent forward to watch and to listen to the distant clatter of hoofs echoed back from the walls of the valley. As the horsemen swung out of sight round the westward bluff and the clatter of hoof-beats deadened, he held up a finger, and Griselda asked, “What is it?”
“Guns,” he said. “Cannon—don’t you hear them?”
She did; a soft, not unpleasing thud, repeated again and again, and coming down the breeze from the northward.
“It must be manoeuvres,” he explained. “That’s what those soldiers are doing. I expect it’s what they call the autumn manoeuvres.”
“Playing at murder,” Griselda commented, producing the orthodox sigh. She had heard the phrase used by a pacifist orator in the Park and considered it apt and telling. “What a waste of time—and what a brutalizing influence on the soldiers themselves! Ah, if only women had a say in national affairs! …” and she made the customary glib oration on her loved and familiar text. Before it was quite finished, William held up his finger again—needlessly, for Griselda had stopped short on her own initiative. This time it was a crackle of sharp little shots, not far away and softened like the sound of the heavier guns, but comparatively close at hand and, if their ears did not deceive them, just beyond the westward bluff.
“They’re pretending to fight in the village,” Griselda said. “How silly! Firing off guns and making believe to shoot people.”
“Militarism,” William assented, “is always silly.” And he, in his turn, enlarged on his favourite text, the impossibility of international warfare, owing to the ever-growing solidarity of the European working-classes—his little homily being punctuated here and there by a further crackle from below. When he had enlarged sufficiently and Griselda had duly agreed, he returned as it were to private life and suggested:
“If you’re feeling more rested, shall we make a start? It’s cooler under the trees.”
They started, accordingly, on their homeward way, which was even longer than the route they had taken in the morning: one little wood path was very like another and they managed to take a wrong turning, bear too much to the right and make a considerable detour. When the cottage came in sight they were both thirsty, and secretly relieved that their last excursion was over.
“We’ll put on the spirit-lamp and have some tea,” Griselda announced as they pushed open the door. “Oh dear! it’s lovely to think we shall be in London so soon. How I would love a strawberry ice! Where’s the matchbox?”
It was not until the matchbox was found and the spirit-lamp kindled that William discovered on the kitchen table a mystery in the shape of a document. It was an unimposing looking document, not over clean, indicted in pencil on the reverse of the half-sheet of paper on which William that morning had written his announcement of “Sorti.” Like William’s announcement, the communication was in French, of a kind—presumably uneducated French if one judged by the writing; and like William the author of the communication (in all likelihood Madame Peys) had placed it in the centre of the table and crowned it with a saucer before leaving.
“I suppose it must be for us,” William remarked doubtfully. “I can’t make out a word of it—can you?”
“Of course not,” Griselda returned with a spice of irritation—she was tired and her boots hurt her. “I couldn’t read that ridiculous writing if it was English. It’s that silly old woman, Madame Peys, I suppose; but what is the good of her writing us letters when she knows we can’t read them?”
“Perhaps,” William suggested, “it’s to say she won’t be able to cook our supper tonight?”
“Very likely,” his wife agreed, the spice of irritation still more pronounced. “If that’s it, we shall have to do with eggs—we used up the cold meat for sandwiches at lunch, and there’s nothing else in the house. We’d better go round to the farm when we’ve had our tea and find out what she wants—stupid old thing! Whether she comes here or not, we must see her to get the bill and order the boy for the morning. But I don’t mean to move another step till I’ve had my tea.”
V
They had their tea, Griselda with her boots off and her aching feet resting on a chair; and after she had lapped up two comfortable cups her irritation subsided and she was once again her pleasant and chattering little self. William, to give her a further rest, volunteered, though with some hesitation, to make the visit to the farm alone; in his mind, as in her own, Griselda was the French scholar of the pair, a reputation due to the fact that it was she to whom Madame Peys preferred, as a rule, to address her unintelligible remarks. Griselda knew what the offer cost him and generously declined to take advantage of it—stipulating only for a few minutes more repose before encasing her weary feet again in boots. The few minutes drew out into half-an-hour or more, and the shadows were lengthening in the valley when they started on their walk to the farm. They started arm-in-arm, the wife leaning on the husband; but when they came in sight of the house Griselda took her arm from William’s and they drew a little apart.
They need not have troubled to observe the minor proprieties; not a soul stirred, not a nose showed itself as they opened the little wooden gate of the garden and made for the open door. They were both of them unobservant of country
