years. She speaks in the strained high voice which protests
against her own infirmity, and her eyes have the pathetic look of
those who search in silence. For many years she lived alone with
her son, who laboured on the farm two miles away. He met his death
rescuing a carthorse from its burning stable; and the farmer gave
the cottage rent free and a weekly half-crown for life to the poor
old woman whose dearest terror was the workhouse. With my shilling
a week rent, and sharing of supplies, we live in the lines of
comfort. Of death she has no fears, for in the long chest in the
kitchen lie a web of coarse white linen, two pennies covered with
the same to keep down tired eyelids, decent white stockings, and a
white cotton sun-bonnet--a decorous death-suit truly--and enough
money in the little bag for self-respecting burial. The farmer
buried his servant handsomely--good man, he knew the love of
reticent grief for a 'kind' burial--and one day Harry's mother is
to lie beside him in the little churchyard which has been a
cornfield, and may some day be one again.



CHAPTER II



On Sundays my feet take ever the same way. First my temple
service, and then five miles tramp over the tender, dewy fields,
with their ineffable earthy smell, until I reach the little church
at the foot of the grey-green down. Here, every Sunday, a young
priest from a neighbouring village says Mass for the tiny hamlet,
where all are very old or very young--for the heyday of life has no