a letter from the Squire, who is an old friend, asking me down for a
week-end, and adding, "You can do a little professional job for me
too. You really will be interested to see what splendid work is being
done here in your line of fire. The output is some of the best in the
district. But there has been trouble lately and the leaders of the two
biggest shifts were found to have appropriated a substantial part of
the output to their own uses. I shall rely on you to straighten things
out and suggest the right penalties."

So they were even making munitions in Cotterham. I conjured up visions
of interminable rows of huts, of thousands of overalled workers
swamping Plough Lane, trampling the Green brown, scaring the geese,
obliterating the immemorial shape of Leg-o'-Mutton Common by a
mushroom township, laying Down Wood low, and coming to me with some
miserable tale of petty pilfering for my adjustment. I must own I got
out of the train at Muddlehampstead and into the station fly feeling
distinctly low-spirited. It was some consolation to find that the
railway still stopped seven miles short of my village, though I
reflected gloomily that the place itself was doubtless a network of
light railways by this time. We bowled along in stately fashion up
Plough Lane and past Halfpenny Cross to the Manor House with its
thatched roof and Virginia-creeper all over the porch. The Squire
carried me off at once for the professional part of my visit, but we
fell to talking of fishing, which had been good, and cubbing, which
had been bad, and were on to Leg-o'-Mutton Common before I remembered
to speak of munitions.

"Not much sign of war here," I said with a relieved sigh. "I was
afraid they'd have spoilt the dear old heath for a certainty. Only
don't say it's Down Wood they've gone to, for that'd be more than I