“No!” exclaimed the harassed, hungry man, jumping to his feet again in alarm. “What’s happened?”
“Haven’t you heard?” and Eileen lowered her voice to an hysterical whisper. “We’ve discovered footprints!”
By this time the Head of Affairs was quite convinced in his mind that either the girl was not in the full possession of her senses, or else she had been to see a Robinson Crusoe pantomime, and it had turned her brain, so he merely said—
“Well, perhaps you’ll now try if you can discover some coffee, and that as quickly as possible.” And he dismissed her when he had ascertained where we had gone, as he was rather weary of the whole performance.
Meanwhile my guests and I were making a few neighbourly calls in passing. In a scattered community that is often cut off by the weather from intercourse with its fellow-kind, a little gossip is always welcome. Not idle gossip, I would have you understand; but talk on things of serious import. For instance, I was naturally very glad to learn from one of my neighbours that old Mrs. Blossom had not been secretly harbouring a German spy after all, as it turned out that the masculine under-vests that had been hung out each week lately with the wash really belonged to her late husband; and after cherishing them for five years, she had decided it was more patriotic to wear them herself at a time like this, than to buy herself new ones when wool was so badly needed for the troops.
It was a real satisfaction to get this mystery cleared up at last, as her clothes-line each Monday morning (when the weather was fine) had worried us greatly. When I say “us” I don’t mean myself necessarily, because I fear I hadn’t kept track of her washing as I ought to have done if I called myself a friend and neighbour. Most remiss of me, of course. Still, there it was; and I had no need now to creep along beside the hedge and take an inventory of her garments; neither need I fear for the safety of our hill.
Fortunately, with us time is of no importance, the clock really doesn’t signify, even if it goes, which isn’t guaranteed; we divide the day into three meals, which are regulated by the three trains that puff up the valley, week-days only. Sunday is more of a problem, if you have children to be got off to Sunday-school; but as Mrs. Jasper has the one reliable clock up in our corner of the hills, her children set the pace; and when Maudie Jasper’s starched China silk Sunday frock is seen to be coming along the lane, accompanied by other little Jaspers in Lord Fauntleroy blue velvet suits and a bunch of everlasting pea, blush roses and southernwood for teacher, then the two or three other cottages in the vicinity hurry up and add their quota to the little procession that walks decorously (so long as it is in sight of maternal eyes) down the hillside trail to the Sunday-school in the valley.
Of course awkward mistakes sometimes happen, as they do in the best of well-regulated families. It was so on the occasion of the first introduction of Daylight Saving. Naturally the weekly newspaper and the vicar and the schoolmaster, and everybody, had explained to everybody else that on a certain Saturday night the clock must be put forward one hour, etc. We are anything but behind the times on our hills, and no clocks in the whole of the British Isles were set forward an hour more eagerly than ours were; only, obviously, if you haven’t a clock that goes, you can’t set it forward; therefore our little corner looked feverishly in the direction of the Jasper clock, and frequently reminded the Jaspers of their national duty.