Chapter I: COULDN’T have been asleep many minutes (though, when I come to think (1)

of it, no one ever is, in London), because I had waited up till eleven for Abigail.

It was like this: the day before, cook had asked me if she might stay out till eleven that night, as she wanted to go and see an old lady in whose employ she had once been. The old lady was seriously ill; she couldn’t get her off her mind; and she felt she ought to give her what little pleasure she could, as she wouldn’t be likely to get over it.

I begged her to take the whole afternoon; such affection was really touching. I saw myself in a few years’ time, decrepit, aged, and infirm, being visited by a crowd of devoted retainers, who murmured one to another:

“She had her faults, goodness knows, but at least we will scatter seeds of kindness!”

In any case, I was pleased for cook to take some extra time, as she is invariably home early—the Naval Division at the Crystal Palace have to be under glass by nine o’clock.

She thanked me, but declined the afternoon, as she thought half-past nine or ten in the evening would suit the old lady best; she was in a West End nursing home. It seemed late to visit one who was so aged and so ill, but, of course, I gave the extended leave.

She returned at 10.55, looking very bright, a bunch of roses in her coat-belt, a box of chocolates dangling from her finger, and a programme in her hand.

Yes, thank you; she had had a lovely time. The old lady?—er—oh, yes! she was getting on nicely, thank you.

* * * * *

Next day, Abigail came to me, also asking for an eleven o’clock leave. It transpired that she was expecting a little orphan cousin to arrive that night from Blackpool; _such_ a sad affair—child left without a father when it was only four years old—she was eight now. No, she hadn’t ever seen the little cousin, but she felt it was such a distressing case that it was her duty to do what she could.

I hinted that eleven o’clock at night seemed rather late for one who was so young and so orphaned to be up and about, and likewise offered her the afternoon. But she said the train didn’t arrive sooner, and the trains were often late. So I gave her till 11.0 p.m. to welcome the pitiful orphan.

She also arrived in at night looking radiant. Under her mackintosh she was wearing a pink chiffon dress, edged with swansdown; a bandeau of sparkles was on her hair, a horseshoe of the same make adorning the back of her head; she carried a fan, and some flowers that had evidently been worn on the dress.

I am glad to say that she, too, had enjoyed herself immensely, and the desolate relative had been most pleased to make her acquaintance.

After that I retired.

* * * * *

And then I conclude it was the bang that did it; at any rate, the whole household woke with a start, and with one accord the feminine portion precipitated itself downstairs and on to the front door mat, and peered out into the dark road in the hope of seeing _something_!

The masculine element, being gifted with a faculty for keeping cool, calm and collected in any emergency, stayed to gather up a few wraps and rugs and overcoats and anything else he could lay his hands on in the dark (including his disreputable old gardening jacket), which he brought down and distributed among us, as we had not stopped for much in the way of clothing.

At that moment Virginia and Ursula rushed along the road from their own house and joined us. Virginia was clad in a nightdress, with a mackintosh over it and a sumptuous pale blue kimono (covered with brown and black flying herons) on the top of the mac. Ursula was wearing her heliotrope dressing-gown, an ostrich feather boa, and an eiderdown quilt.

They both apologised for calling so late (it was past midnight), but said they felt they should just like to talk things over.

While I was bidding them welcome, Miss Quirker (from round the corner) appeared; likewise Miss Thresher (a secondary-school mistress) and her friend Mrs. Brash, who share a flat near by; and in the rear came Mrs. Ridley, the doctor’s widow from across the road.

They all said they had come because they could see “it” better from my house, which stands on a high point, overlooking London one way, and Kent from the other side.

Each caller was grateful for the loan of a blanket.

Meanwhile, in far less time than it takes to write all this, fire-engines and ambulances, and policemen and motor-cars and pedestrians appeared as by magic from nowhere and went tearing along the road. Yet, crane our necks as we would, not a glimpse could we catch of “it.”

Miss Quirker—who always seems to have special and exclusive information about everything—said the creature was exactly over her bedroom chimney when the bomb was dropped; she heard a strange whirring noise (described most graphically), and turned on the electric light for company; then there was a _brilliant_ flash in the sky (yes, she could see it above the electric light), and the bomb fell—she was sure it was in her back garden. She looked very pleased with herself and superior, to think that she had been singled out by Fate for this special and distinctive visitation.

The man of the house, after bidding us stay just where we were as he wouldn’t be gone a minute, hied him buoyantly down the road in company with neighbouring masculines—to find the bomb, I suppose. He soon returned, however, with the exceedingly flat information that a gas explosion had occurred in a house further along, though they couldn’t tell whether it was due to the geyser or the cooking-range, as they couldn’t find either.

[Later on, the remains of a geyser and part of a porcelain bath were picked up about six miles off, in the Walworth Road; and I understand that the police at Sevenoaks found the remnants of an alien gas-stove wandering about in a suspicious manner, and promptly interned it. But this is by the way.]

“Only a gas explosion!” exclaimed everybody in doleful disappointment. Mrs. Brash certainly looked relieved; but then she is a very nervous little woman with a weak heart.

“Well, I call it _too_ bad!” said Virginia. “Every solitary relative, friend, and acquaintance I possess, even to the third and fourth generation, has had a Zepp cross ‘right over their very road’; and every person I’ve met during the last twelve months boasts and brags of the way they’ve had them ‘exactly above their heads.’ And yet, do what I will, I can’t get a sight of even the tail of one.”

“Just my case,” said everybody else in chorus; “I seem to be the only one in London who hasn’t seen one.”

But Miss Thresher cut short our bemoanings over the hardness of our lot, by saying in her head-mistress voice—

“I’m afraid an excess of untutored imagination is one of the weaknesses of this age. We, however, can console ourselves with the knowledge that at least we are _truthful_; and truth, after all, is the greater asset”—looking witheringly at Miss Quirker.

I replied, “How about some hot coffee?” It was the most appropriate remark that I could think of on the spur of the moment.

Cook promptly offered to get it, while I went after tea-gowns and dressing-gowns and similar symbols of propriety for our shivering guests, who looked a trifle nondescript now that the lights were on. The man of the house had returned to assist at the explosion.

If Miss Thresher hoped that her last remark would quelch Miss Quirker, she was mistaken nothing can suppress that lady, and nothing is sacred to her. She will stalk up to your secret cupboard, no matter how boldly you may have labelled it “strictly private,” and drag out into broad daylight the most disreputable skeleton you keep in it, the one you packed away at the very back of the top shelf—and then be pained at your ingratitude!

As I entered the room with an armful of apparel I heard her saying to Miss Thresher, “Why don’t you put a flounce on the bottom? Those cheap flannelettes always shrink in the wash.... Oh, flannel is it?... Really! no one would ever think you gave that much for it, would they? At any rate I couldn’t sleep if I didn’t have them right down around my feet.”

* * * * *

To change the subject I asked Virginia why she had put her mac. on under her kimono, when obviously the correct order would have been to wear it outside.

She said she concluded it was sheer genius and originality made her do it, for she had never worn such a combination in her life before; and the same must have applied to Ursula, for, looking back on a varied and chequered career, she could never remember seeing her sister, even once, promenading the highway in an eiderdown before.

At the same time, she inquired why it was that _I_ had stood for a quarter of an hour on that doormat, clasping feverishly to my chest a pair of satin slippers and a bath towel, and clinging pathetically to a bedroom candlestick; when obviously any candle would have blown out had I attempted to light it, and the bedroom slippers would have been more usefully employed on my shoeless feet; while as for the bath towel...!

The coffee came at that moment. I remembered that some time ago the kitchen had been very interested in an article in one of the dailies, giving various directions as to what should be done in the case of bombs overhead. I forget a good deal of it, but I remember you had to lay mattresses all over the top floors before you came downstairs, and you had to dip a cloth in hyposulphate of something, and hold it to your nose as you came down to seek a place of safety.

The servants were rather taken with the mattress idea, said how simple it was, and that, as they had five mattresses between them, they would cover a good deal of floor space. I even generously offered them the two off my own bed, if they would come down and fetch them as soon as the Zepps were heard, so long as they undertook to place them carefully above _my_ head.

When Abigail brought in the trays, I asked how many mattresses she had laid down.

“I never gave ’em a thought,” she owned up; “my two legs seemed all that mattered, for I was sure I saw the Zeppelin-thing looking straight in at my bedroom window—such sauce!”

“Untutored imagination again!” murmured Ursula in my ear.

Nervous little Mrs. Brash said that was just the difficulty; when it actually came to the point you could think of nothing that you ought to remember. Wouldn’t it be well to talk the subject over and decide a few things—merely to be prepared—now that there was a group of us together.

Miss Thresher, who loves the importance of being in any sort of office, enthused over the idea; said we had better have a committee meeting there and then; to be forewarned was to be forearmed, she told us, with an impressive air of wisdom. She said she would be Minute Secretary, and we must draw up schedules stating definitely and clearly what a woman ought to do, first by way of preparation beforehand, and secondly when the crisis actually arrived.

Miss Quirker endorsed this, and remarked in an aggrieved tone (in my direction) that she should have thought the women’s papers would have dealt comprehensively with so important a subject long ago. She added, however, that she thought “crisis” was far too respectable a name to give them; had she not been a staunch Churchwoman, she would have called them something far more vividly appropriate. I didn’t hear the end of this, because I slipped away to find the man of the house, as I had heard him return indoors.

Opening the study door, my eyes fell on such an upheaval that for the moment I felt certain a gas explosion must have been at work there. But no! He explained (turning out yet another drawer) that he was only looking for some insurance policies, as he wasn’t quite certain what was the attitude of the companies towards geysers. I pointed out that it didn’t matter as we hadn’t one; but he went on looking, and his face wore that tense expression seen on most men when hunting for the family screwdriver, or the pair of black gloves kept for funerals. Having found the policies at last (in the drawer where they had always been kept, by the way), I left him in peace, to peruse them at his leisure.

* * * * *

The Ladies’ Committee was well under way when I returned to the dining-room, and as is the correct thing at such gatherings, everybody was talking at once and on the most diverse topics. I consider myself rather great on ladies’ committees; I’ve even occupied the proud position of being in the chair, on occasion. And the more I see of them the more I am lost in admiration of the courage, versatility, and insuppressibility of my sex.

Why, there’s no man living who could trail as many totally irrelevant topics across the agenda, and in defiance of a politely pleading chairwoman too, as can the littlest and frailest woman at any ladies’ committee you like to name.

As it was, the only one who seemed within a hundred miles of Zeppelins was poor Mrs. Brash, who was explaining to Mrs. Ridley—

“It isn’t that I mind dying: we all have to die _some_ day: but I do prefer to die _whole_.”

Of course the doctor’s widow pooh-poohed this as nonsense, and asked severely what would become of surgeons if everybody felt like _that_!

Miss Thresher couldn’t find a suitable heading for her schedule, till Ursula suggested “Antizeptics.” Mrs. Ridley thought the medical profession might not approve of the unprofessional use of the word; but it was accepted by the majority, and then we all settled down wholeheartedly to attack the problem from every point of view—which included, among other things, borax as a preventive for moth, Queen Mary’s graciousness, a comparison of the respective merits of local butchers, economising on corsets, and the War Loan.

Perhaps you can’t see how these came in, but it was simple enough. Miss Quicker said that, after all, explosions that you thought were Zeppelins weren’t so bad if they enabled you to get such good coffee as mine; and might she have a third lump of sugar, please? it was such a treat to get a really sweet cup of coffee; she had given up sugar at home as she was economising on it.

Being the hostess, I couldn’t exactly tell her that I, too, was trying to economise on mine.

From the high price of sugar we naturally floated on to the ruinous tendencies of butcher’s meat, and Mrs. Brash explained the trouble she had with her butcher because he wouldn’t send home all the bones.

Mrs. Ridley had similar harrowments to relate about her butcher, but his vice took the form of sticking to the trimmings from the joints, which she was sure he sold at a good price for soap-making, now that fat was so scarce and soap likely to be dear. She knew it because—as she reminded us—she was the treasurer of the “Women’s League for Encouraging the Troops to Wash,” and it came very hard on their funds. What it would cost them for the cakes of soap they were going to send out no one would believe! (No, they hadn’t sent any yet; but of course they were going to, when they got enough members, and, by the way, would _I_ join?)

She didn’t mind a fair charge, of course (we all murmured agreement). War was war, and we must expect to pay something extra to help the King keep going; he had his family to provide for like any other man. Neither did she grudge one solitary penny that went to Lord Kitchener (hearty applause). No, indeed! But what made her blood boil was to feel that she was actually washing her hands with her own ribs—and at one-and-threepence-halfpenny a pound, too!

Virginia suggested she should try a rather less heating soap; but she was drowned by Miss Thresher, who said firmly, “Borax; that’s what you ought to send to the troops. Not only would it soften the water for them, poor things—and no one knows better than I do what awfully hard stuff that German water is; nearly scraped my skin off when I went up the Rhine two years ago—but they would find it so useful to put in with their woollen things that we’ve been knitting them, to keep out the moth.”

My reminder that our troops were not as yet, alas! drawing their water from German cisterns was unnoticed; for the mere mention of moth produced extraordinary animation. Was borax good? Weren’t they a perfect nuisance? and so on. I said I always put it in with my furs, and never had a moth near them.

“I wonder if that’s what they put with Queen Mary’s furs,” said Mrs. Brash. “I never saw more lovely sables than those she had on when she came to the hospital yesterday.”

Miss Thresher verified this last statement, absolutely superb they were, and Miss Thresher had a right to speak, for the Queen had bowed straight at her, as she stood on the kerb, “as near to her as I am to you.”

Miss Quirker said that for her part she didn’t think there was another woman in the world so gracious as Queen Mary—except of course Queen Alexandra. She would bow to anyone she saw, no matter _how_ shabby they were.

Mrs. Brash hurriedly said what she so much admired in Queen Alexandra was her figure.

Miss Quirker continued, “Yes, and speaking of corsets I want to tell you of another economy besides doing without sugar to help the nation. You should buy your corsets several sizes larger than usual, and then when they are getting worn, you can turn them upside down and wear them the other way up. It’s so saving.”

Ursula said she quite believed it, because she knew, if she turned her long corsets upside down, they would reach high enough up to support the military collar at the back of her neck, and thus save boning.

I felt it was high time we got back to “Antizeptics,” and suggested that we should put something in the first column of the schedule, which was headed: “Things to place in readiness beforehand.”

Mrs. Brash announced that she wasn’t ever going to take her clothes off any more till the war was over, if this was the sort of goings-on we were to expect.

General opinion, however, was decidedly in favour of, at any rate, removing the outside frock, simply because we none of us saw any prospect of ever being able to afford to buy a new one.

Then we all said what we thought ought to go into that column. Woollen undies, a fur-lined coat, a thick dressing-gown, a raincoat, a travelling rug, and all sorts of other things, were to be placed _close to the bedside_. This was insisted upon as a matter of the greatest importance; otherwise, in the dark, we should never find anything, and of course it wouldn’t be safe to have a light.

Miss Thresher and Miss Quirker had a small sub-committee on the subject of stockings—should they be worn all night in bed? Miss Thresher said obviously it was the only sensible course. Miss Quirker objected that she should kick hers off in her sleep in any case, hers was such a delicate skin (as a child people had always remarked on it), though probably women less sensitive than herself might be able to endure them. But if she lost hers among the bedclothes she would never find them in the dark.

Eventually they compromised by agreeing to safety-pin a pair to the front of the nightdress (as they fasten your handkerchief to you in the hospital), so that at least they would know where to find them in case of precipitate flight.

Meanwhile the question, “Should hats be worn?” necessitated Ursula and Mrs. Brash going into another sub-committee on the lounge. Mrs. Brash favoured a shawl—preferably white—being draped over the head; it was more suited to the _négligé_ condition of the hair. This led her to consult Ursula about the winter’s hat she was evolving. She had had an _exceedingly_ good white and black crinoline hat the summer before last, and the winter before last she had had a _very_ lovely violet velvet toque—the rich deep colour favoured by Queen Alexandra.

Last winter she had taken the violet velvet from the hat of the winter before, and put it over the crinoline hat of the summer before (you can follow this, I hope?), and everybody had admired it. Now she proposed to return the violet velvet to its original toque, only this time she would smother it with some violets she had by her, and she had a really beautiful little sable skin which she proposed to put round the brim. Did Miss Ursula think the violets and the fur would combine well?

Ursula said she herself didn’t care for fur and flowers in combination, because she always associated sables with snowy northern regions, whereas violets suggested soft spring days and awakening woods and gardens.

Mrs. Brash, who had never thought of putting things together in that way before, said how very poetic it was. Then would Miss Ursula think that quills would look better? After all, birds and flowers went together.

Ursula agreed, and added that she had even found the neighbours’ fowls scratting up the white violets one day. Mrs. Brash seemed to feel that was conclusive proof of the desirability of the combination. And in that case, should the quills tilt outwards or inwards? No, she didn’t mean inside the hat, of course, but across the top or off the head?... Yes, perhaps it would be the best to tilt them backwards, and she should fasten them with a large cameo that had belonged to the late Mr. Brash’s mother (prolific details as to the grasping character of Mrs. Brash, senior, who had never given her a thing except this cameo).

Finally, she aired her only anxiety—would the shape of the winter-before-last toque still be worn this winter? Ursula assured her that the shapes of the winter-before-last will be worn till the war is over, and by that time we shall have become so attached to them that we shall refuse to part with them.

* * * * *

After we had collected a fairly comprehensive pile of clothes—including most we possessed—and placed it all close beside the bed, jewellery came under discussion. Naturally no one wanted to lose even the smallest tiara, and we were all quite sure the Government wouldn’t include jewellery in the insurance. So we collected our trinkets and placed them on top of the garments. It was astonishing how much we each seemed to possess, and how careful we were to enumerate it all. Mrs. Brash enlarged tearfully and at great length on the diamond necklace her late husband had given her.

This opened up a wider question. How about silver plate? Yes, how about the silver? each one echoed. Was it likely we were going to hand over our teapots, shoelifts, candlesticks, pin-boxes, spoons and forks, hair-brushes, entrée-dishes, and photo-frames to the enemy? No, indeed not! So we all lugged our plate-chests to the bedside; though Miss Thresher said she should put hers all into a laundry bag and hang it on the bedpost; it would be easier to carry that way.

Then a number of side issues cropped up. Virginia had just invested in the War Loan; there was her scrip. Mrs. Brash couldn’t think of leaving behind the portrait of her great-grand-uncle, the admiral (always thus referred to, as though no other had ever existed), whereupon we all remembered we had ancestral portraits calling for preservation—after all, it doesn’t look well if you haven’t!

Miss Quirker decided she would take the bedspread she had crocheted for their forthcoming Red Cross bazaar (but didn’t intend to give it to them now it was finished; it was far too pretty. Besides, the secretary had only put her name in small type among “other ladies helping” below the stallholders, and just think how she had slaved over that bazaar!).

Mrs. Ridley said that whatever else went, she meant at all costs to save the presentation clock given to her late husband by a very celebrated patient, whose name she was not at liberty to state. I’m inclined to think this was mentioned as a set-off against Mrs. Brash’s diamond necklace; the late Mr. Brash, though an admirable husband, did not seem to have generated anything remarkable in the way of public esteem, whereas the late Dr. Ridley was known to be anything but generous.

Mrs. Ridley had no diamonds; but the clock was of solid granite, made on the model of a pyramid. It was surmounted by a coy-looking sphinx, representing about a quarter of a hundredweight of bronze metal. Accompanying the pyramid—one at each end of the mantelpiece—was a pair of heavy granite obelisks (like Cleopatra’s Needle, but just a size smaller). It took both the servants to lift the clock every time the mantelpiece was dusted, Mrs. Ridley explained with pride. Besides, the obelisks were very useful to hang her knitting bag on, and so appropriate too, with our brave lads out there rallying round and defending the poor sphinx from the Turks. (Virginia whispered in my ear, it was no wonder the bronze lady looked so cheerful.)

So of course these weighty items joined the jewellery at the bedside.

Other valuables rapidly suggested themselves; also more sordid things, such as matches and candles, a tin of biscuits, and a small stove and kettle, for use if we had to sit out in the road all night gazing at a ruined home.

And of course we placed pails of sand and buckets of water close at hand, to use if it should be an incendiary bomb. (I hoped I shouldn’t hop out of bed straight into the water!)

Here Ursula reminded me that the pile of sand placed on the platform of our London station several months (or was it years?) ago, for Anti-zeptic treatment, was now sprouting luscious grass; obviously the lawn-mower and garden-roller must be added to the bedside museum.

But I told her afterwards, she had better keep quiet if she lacks the ability to grasp the strenuosity of any situation where a group of conscientious women are conversing on the subject of “doing something.” As it was, her remark only incited Miss Quirker to spend a tedious five minutes in explaining to her how impossible it would be for a single woman, with only one maid, to get the garden-roller upstairs, and another ten in giving her recipes for exterminating grass; while Mrs. Ridley went off at a tangent on the shortage of gardeners, and the advantages of paraffin over fish-oil as a lubricant for mowing-machines.

I only succeeded in getting her back to the agenda, by begging her to advise us, as she was such an authority on paraffin, whether to take an oil-stove or a spirit-lamp for the outdoor encampment.

* * * * *

At length, when any ordinary bedroom must have been packed quite full, and suggestive of a furniture depository, Virginia’s voice rose above the babel—

“But what I want to know is, how am I ever going to get into bed?”

“You may well ask!” said her sister. “Look at the time! Just you come along home with me. I’ll show you. Where’s my eiderdown?”

Miss Thresher besought them to stay a few minutes longer, merely to decide what to do when the Zeppelins actually arrived. But Ursula said they had got all their work cut out to get through the preparatory stages of the schedule.

So the Committee adjourned.

As they went out, a figure came out of the kitchen side entrance and made for the coach-house, carrying a big cardboard box.

“Is anything the matter, Abigail?” I asked.

“No’m! I’m only hiding all our best hats in the stable; I expect they’ll be less likely to find them there.”

“But the Zepps aren’t exactly like burglars!” I said.

“No, I suppose they’re not,” she replied, “but when a creature like that Kaiser gets nosing about among _the stars_, as well as trying to rampage all over the earth, there’s no telling _what_ he’ll be up to next. It’s as well to be prepared.”

IX

Where the Road Led Over the Hills

NEXT morning I was a wreck. Virginia and her sister were the same.

For a week past I had realised that I was in the last stage of mental and physical disrepair. The midnight committee was the final straw.

As a rule, I stick at work in town till nerves and brain refuse to hold out another day; then, flinging my tools down, and leaving both my office desk and my study table in a hopeless and bewildering state of piled-up letters, MSS. and proofs, I just fly—a goodly bale of arrears following me by next post.

I had had practically no holiday owing to the war, and had reached that forlorn and useless frame of mind when I declared I was far too busy to take one—a very mistaken notion for anyone to have, by the way; it is surprising how well most of us can be done without when we do at last take a little time off duty!

However, I had just one faint glimmer of common sense left me, and that told me to take the first train going west next morning, which I did, leaving Paddington (in company with Virginia and Ursula, who had a holiday due to her from the hospital) in a warm close fog that might imply a thunderstorm, or an early autumn, or merely the ordinary airless carbonic-acid gloom that is a distinguishing feature of London. Some eminent authority has said that the air in London hasn’t been changed for over a hundred years, and I can quite believe it!

We found the cottage bathed in the glow of the soft sunshine that is still summer, but that brings with it the first touch of regret for the good-bye that is near at hand. There had been some soaking rains after a dry spell, and everything in the garden was holding up bright, refreshed leaves, and glowing flowers, one and all assuring me that though they had a gasping time a few weeks before, and had wondered from day to day if they could manage to hold on till the evening, things had now taken a glorious turn for the better; and they were glad they hadn’t given up, since I was so pleased to see them.

Several apologised for ragged washed-out blossoms lower down their stem, but explained that it was due to the rain, and that they were sending up new ones to take the place of the shabby ones as quickly as ever they could.

The dear things seemed to look at me with such understanding sympathy; the pansies held up their bright little faces just like a bevy of inquiring children; the hollyhocks, I am sure, turned round to look in my direction; the last of the sweet peas threw out tender little fingers to touch my arm as I passed beside their hedge; the golden rod stretched its neck and tiptoed lest I should miss it at the back of the border.

Haven’t you noticed that most flowers seem to have faces? I don’t mean that you can trace a direct resemblance to human features in them as you can in the moon; but there is something in the flowers that looks at you—something that looks at you shyly, as the wild rose; or stares at you boldly, like the marigold; or twinkles at you gaily, like the cornflower and coreopsis; or appears slightly inclined to frivolity, like the larkspur and the ragged robin; or takes life with solid seriousness, like the Canterbury bell; or gives you the innocent look of a baby, like the primrose; or beams at you with large-hearted maternal kindness, like a big gloire de Dijon.

Most flowers, you will find, give you a look with some definite characteristic—at least, so it seems to me. Probably that is one reason why they are so comforting and companionable.

And I was wanting something comforting and companionable that day. I had overworked and generally neglected the rules of common sense, till I had got to that dismal pitch that simply asks of blank space, “What’s the good of anything?”

Then more questions began to worry me.

What had Christianity accomplished, seeing the way the Sermon on the Mount was being trampled under foot by the instigators of this war? After all, wasn’t might going to win, in spite of all one believed of the supremacy of right? Wasn’t the devil having things all his own way now? What were Christians doing? Had religion lost its power? What were the churches doing? Was _anybody_ doing _anything_ worth whiles?

Those who have let themselves run down physically, and have neglected to take proper meals, and have turned night into day, and have tried systematically to cram a fortnight’s work into every week, know exactly where one finds oneself at the end of a few months.

And it is only the very exceptional people who do not find their spiritual condition about as jaded as their nerves after a course of this sort of thing. We get to feel that we are ploughing a very lone furrow, and it is only a step further to the state of mind that says it isn’t worth ploughing at all.

Personal experience has taught me that there is only one cure for me when I get to this state of nervous wreckage; and that is to get away to the solitudes; to listen among the great silences of the hills for the still small Voice that has never failed those who wait for its Message.

God’s methods of restoring weary humanity are many and various. Sometimes He sees that first and foremost, like Elijah, His tired children need rest and food. And just as one of the greatest terrors that can befall the worn-out worker in a city is insomnia, so one of the greatest boons that Nature in her quietudes bestows is the ability to drop off into peaceful, brain-mending oblivion.

So He giveth His beloved sleep.

Or it may be that He sees His children need to be drawn away from the world for a while, in order to talk face to face with Him. Sometimes we have to be brought to a state of great weakness before we will listen to His plea: “Come ye yourselves apart and rest awhile.” We do not always heed it when we are well and strong. In the enforced quiet we can find time to turn to Him.

And a sojourn with our Lord in the desert has meant for many the feeding of five thousand on the morrow.

* * * * *

When I am badly in the depths, I know of no surer way to restore my mind than a long walk across the hills. Some people need human companionship; but, personally, I can do very well by myself under such circumstances (always provided that I don’t meet a cow likewise on a walking tour). I can pull myself together more quickly if I don’t have to spend time and energy striving to be amiable and politely attentive to someone.

I have often started out on a Sunday morning, and walked on till I came upon some unknown church that served as a useful end to my pilgrimage. On one occasion I remember discovering a small chapel hidden away among a few homesteads in a pretty valley I unexpectedly tumbled into. They were starting the first hymn as I entered. There were nine of us all told, including the preacher, the two ladies who raised two different tunes simultaneously, and the rugged-faced deacon or elder, who brought me a hymnbook and, later, took the collection.

The singing was not a marked success at first, owing partly to the divided opinion of the congregation as to which tune they were really singing; moreover, my entrance had momentarily diverted attention and seemed to make all concerned a trifle nervous. But at length the preacher himself started a third tune that we all knew and were able to join in; and a very sincere and devout service followed.

I gathered from information impressed upon us in the course of the sermon (probably for my special benefit, as the handful of cottagers assembled would assuredly know) that there was to be a special collection that day on behalf of some chapel fund.

When I told this to Ursula, who didn’t then know so much about our hill-people as she does now, she said, “Ah! I suppose that was why only nine came!”

But, in reality, nine was not at all a poor congregation for a tiny hamlet like this on a Sunday morning. The mothers are mostly at home getting dinner; the fathers are seeing to the stock, and don’t reckon to get themselves “cleaned up” till the afternoon. But in the evening—then the little building would be packed to the door.

In his final prayer the minister prayed so earnestly that we might all be induced to give with the greatest liberality, that I felt exceedingly sorry I had only put a half-crown into my glove when I started out, leaving my purse at home.

The rugged elder looked studiously in the opposite direction while I slipped the coin on to the plate; somehow I hoped he wouldn’t be too disappointed when he discovered that the respectable-looking stranger had not given more handsomely after the pleading of the preacher. But it was all I had.

After the service I lingered a moment to read a quaint old tombstone in the church precincts. The rest of the worshippers likewise lingered—respectful but curious—in the road outside the gate. The preacher had shaken hands with me at the door; my rugged friend had been immersed in the duties of his office as steward, treasurer, and church secretary combined. But now he came out of the door, looked anxiously about, and seeing me still there, made straight for me. I concluded that he, too, was going to shake hands, and possibly inquire if I was staying in the neighbourhood. But what he actually said was this—

“Excuse me, ma’am, but do you happen to know what you put into the plate?”

“A half-crown,” I faltered, wondering whether by any remote chance it was a bad one.

He nodded his head, and, opening his work-hardened hand, displayed the morning’s collection—seven pennies, three halfpennies, and my half-crown on top.

“That’s right,” he nodded. And then, lowering his voice, presumably to save my feelings, he added, “But if ’twas a mistake, and you didn’t mean to put in all that, _you can have it back_.”

Do you know, it made a lump come in my throat.

* * * * *

I told Ursula about it at dinner, remarking that it looked as though they hadn’t much faith even though they had specially prayed for generous giving.

Ursula said that in _her_ opinion it looked as though it was high time I presented to the ragbag the hat I had worn that morning, since it had been for months past a dejected object of pity, though with her usual delicacy of feeling she had, up to the present, refrained from telling me so in plain English. But now, in all kindness such as only a dear friend can show, she had no hesitation in saying that she wasn’t at all surprised that they mistook me for an old age pensioner on the verge of bankruptcy.

* * * * *

But I’ve been wandering again. To return to that September day when I reached the cottage as weary of life and as downhearted about everything as any mortal could well be. The whole world seemed out of joint. Yet in my innermost soul I knew that religion was really all right, and that it was I who had gone wrong. But I refused to look at that aspect of it.

Next day I determined to give it all up, and just meditated on my own funeral. I tried to reckon up how many people I could really rely on to send wreaths; it didn’t make me feel any the less pessimistic when I decided there were only four who could be counted upon as certainties, and they included Virginia and Ursula!

And even one of these failed me; for when I mentioned the matter to the girls, they said: Surely I didn’t imagine they were going to be so wasteful as to send _two_ wreaths, when one would do quite as well if both their names appeared on the card attached? But they did offer to make it a wreath of painted-white-tin flowers, under a glass shade (regardless of expense), if I preferred, suggesting that I might get longer pleasure out of a wreath of this kind.

Getting no more consolation from them than this, I said I would go for a walk. Virginia and Ursula anticipated my wishes and declined to accompany me. They had urgent work on hand that was far too important to postpone for a mere walk. It was the planting of onion seed.

The week before we had read in the papers how imperative it was that everybody should plant food crops in any available scrap of ground they might possess, to help keep starvation at bay.

We read the article eagerly.

I had several acres of land doing nothing in particular at the moment, that I was only too glad to use for a special crop of eatables against the time of national famine. Without finishing the article, we had started to discuss what would be best to lay down, taking into account the idiosyncrasies of our digestions.

“Green peas in the small field adjoining the orchard,” Ursula had decided for me; and then she proceeded: “Broad beans in half of the upper garden; scarlet runners at the back of the strawberry beds and along by the south wall; the potato garden can now have carrots, parsnips, turnips and beets; the west garden must have pickled cabbage (I mean the cabbage before it is pickled), shallots, spring onions and pickling onions, chives——”

“What _are_ ‘chives’?” interrupted Virginia.

“I don’t know, but I’ve read the name somewhere. Don’t interrupt me.”

“And fennel—that will come in handy for fish—and leeks. In that piece of waste ground beyond the barn I think we ought to plant asparagus, because, after all, there is no need to dispense with luxuries if you can grow them for nothing, is there?

“And how would it be to plant maize all down that bed where you had the Shirley poppies? I should think the same aspect would suit the two, and some green corn would be very nice. I suppose, if you plant it now, it will be about right in January or February, wouldn’t it? Or you could sell it. It’s twopence halfpenny or threepence a cob at the Stores. So if you had, say, fifty plants, and if each produced—how many _do_ they produce on a plant?... Oh, well, if you don’t know, let’s be on the safe side and say one each—that would be a clear profit of—well, at threepence each—let’s see, fifty pence is four and twopence, and three times would be—twelve and sixpence—say twelve shillings, allowing sixpence for seed. So that would be well worth trying, in case the moratorium never ends. Then there would have to be cabbages and suchlike. How about digging up the orchard, and——”

“Oh, yes,” said Virginia scornfully (she had picked up the paper and read to the end of the aforementioned article, which had proved very enlightening). “And I suppose you expect it all to grow under a couple of feet of snow. Let me tell you that it is now too late to plant anything but onions! He, she, or it, who wrote this article, says so.”

I myself had been going to tell her, when I could get a word in, that it was too late for most of the things she had named.

But Ursula, who had never done any vegetable gardening, was still sceptical. That was why I suggested that we should consult the obliging manager at Carter’s, in Queen Victoria Street, as we often did over our gardening woes.

Just ahead of us in the shop, when we got there, was an elderly gentleman who wanted some grass seed; he asked if they would tell him how to start a lawn next spring.

It was in the middle of the day—a very busy time for a shop of this kind, when city men are on their way to or from lunch, and seize a few extra minutes to buy their seeds. The shop was full—it looked as though every scrap of land within the twelve-mile radius was going to be put under cultivation—and the assistants had all their work to serve everyone as quickly as they wanted to be served.

The Elderly Gentleman was apparently the only one who was not in a hurry; so he asked the most minute questions, and the manager gave him copious directions, from preparing the ground at the start, right up to marking it off for tennis, when it was in its prime (though, judging by the small packet of seed the E. G. had bought, the lawn would never support a tennis-net).

Then by the time the shop was quite packed, and when everything that was possible appeared to have been said about planting and maintaining a lawn—including keeping it free from moss, the best way to trim the edges, the law with regard to trespassing fowls, and the careful tying of black cotton over the newly-planted seeds to keep off the birds—the E. G. asked what he should do when daisies came up? The manager said patiently that his firm’s grass seeds didn’t produce daisies; but as the E. G. seemed to worry about daisies, he was told how to get rid of daisies.

At last he really went, reluctantly, I admit; but the other customers—who had all become so engrossed in his lawn that they couldn’t remember what they had come in to buy for themselves—heaved a sigh of relief.

Slowly he made his way to the middle of the wide crossing just in front of the shop. You knew by his hesitating walk that there was another question he had meant to ask, but he couldn’t recall it for the moment.

Yes! He suddenly turned round briskly (and nearly ended the lawn under a taxi), the shop-door opened again, and an anxious voice inquired, “What ought I to do if the birds get at the seeds in spite of the black cotton and the bits of white rag tied to them?”

The manager passed his hand across what looked like an aching brow, and further braced himself to do his duty; but a gentleman customer came to the rescue by replying, “It is usual, in such a case, sir, to buy another packet of grass seed, and start all over again on exactly the same lines as before, only you plant an extra reel of black cotton this time.”

After this we were able to inquire of the manager what crops he would advise us to plant as our contribution to the nation’s larder, to say nothing of our own.

“Onions,” he said, so promptly that one would have thought others had asked the same question. And then added—“Giant Rocca.”

I am not sure how many pounds of seed Ursula immediately ordered; she proposed to make it a present to me, and naturally wished to be generous. Virginia says she believes she heard her say a half-a-hundredweight. Anyhow, the obliging manager asked, with a slight cough, how large a portion of ground we were intending to cultivate, as half an ounce would be sufficient for—I forget how many acres! So she reduced her order to half a pound. She said she didn’t want us to run short. (I don’t fancy we shall, either!) Besides, she rather liked the name “Giant Rocca.” It suggested something large and strengthening wherewith to combat the foe.

* * * * *

We hadn’t a moment’s rest after we arrived at the cottage until the onion seed was well underground. Ursula decided that it would be really a blessing if I _would_ go out—she could then plant in peace.

The handy man being unable to “oblige” me by doing a little work just then, she had decided to plant the seeds herself.

At first she had made long troughs in which to place the seed, sprinkling it very finely with thumb and finger; but after half an hour of this spine-breaking work she straightened her back with difficulty, and decided that to “sow broadcast” was more in accordance with Nature herself, to say nothing of Biblical teaching. Hence we had it broadcast.

Here I may say that we eventually had Giant Roccas sown the length and breadth of the vegetable garden, in between the rows of spring greens, as well as in open spaces; also they are sending up their spears between rows of snapdragons; round standard rose-trees; in the beds usually devoted to Darwin tulips; down the narrow bed that has Persian irises in the centre and double daisies at the edge; in the rough bed of foxgloves at the back of the pigsty, along the edge of the borders where sweet alyssum bloomed in the summer; under the damson tree where the ground is bare; along by the south wall, where the sweet pea remains were pulled up to make room for them; among the raspberry canes; all over the potato-patch; along with the carnation cuttings in the cold frame; in little dibbles among the strawberry plants; and I even found a few pots, each with a bit of glass over the top, placed in the sunny scullery window, which also proved to be “Giant Roccas,” in case we should run short indoors.

When all these Roccas have attained to their gigantic proportions, I fancy we shall be able to scent that garden a mile or two away!

* * * * *

Still, the onions were only being planted the day I set out for a walk, wandering just where the road might chance to lead me. But you have to take yourself with you, if you go for a walk, and it is some time before you can get away from yourself—if you can make out what I mean by this.

I merely walked on and on, looking at the blackbirds gobbling down the red mountain ash berries, till one gasped at their stowing-away capacity; at the swallows practising their long sweeping flights preparatory to leaving us; at the ferns growing out of the shady side of the walls; at a great patch of rich purple in the corner of a field—that turned out to be a widespread tangle of flowering vetch; at the beautiful colour effect of massed heliotrope Michaelmas daisies against the grey-green background of a mossy fern-decked old stone wall; at the harebells swinging in the wind; at the late foxgloves, still poking beautiful spikes of colour through the hedges; at the blackberries trailing over everything; at the butterflies still flitting about, or resting motionless with outspread wings where they found a warm sunny stone, or gorging themselves to repletion on some over-ripe pears that had fallen by the roadside. There were several lovely creatures with blue-black wings marked with red, white and a little blue, who, like the wasps, were actually intoxicated with pear juice!

A fox slunk across the road right in front of me, and plunged into a wood; probably having the time of his life just now, with most of the hunt somewhere in France.

The springs were coming to life again, after the heavy rain, and water burbled along at the side of the lane, or tumbled out from the rocks at the roadside in tiny waterfalls.

The orchard trees were flecked all over with gold, or pale yellow, or bright crimson—surely we never had a more abundant apple year than this one.

It was such a wonderful afternoon: I was bound to go on wandering.

* * * * *