“Home to my vicarage I hasted
Feeling the day had not been wasted.”
“A parson of the type of Herrick,” said Boyce.
“Yes . . . but more serious.”
“That kind of affair is awfully serious . . . at the time.”
The gables of Evesham and its one tall tower swam in a golden dust. They drank cider in the inn courtyard, purchased a couple of Bath chaps at a grocer’s and crossed the Avon. Through an orchard country they rode in that hour of evening when bird-song is most wistful. The sun went down in a blaze of splendour behind Bredon Hill. The perfume of a beanfield swept across the road.
“Good God, isn’t it good?” said Boyce. “We are nearly there.”
A village of Cotswold stone half hidden in blossoms of crimson rambler received them. The gardens were full of sweet-williams, pale phloxes, and tall hollyhocks. “Straight on,” Boyce called.
A sign-post pointed up the hill to Overton. They dismounted, and pushed their bicycles up a steep lane in the twilight. Bats were flitting everywhere, and a buff-coloured owl fluttered heavily between the overarching elms. A faint tinkle of trickling water came to their ears.
“That is the sound of Overton,” said Boyce. “Slow water trickling in the night.”
They slept together in the low-beamed room, so soundly that the sun was high before they wakened next morning.