"Or attended church, and listened to clever sermons, and all that sort of thing?"
"No, never. My guv'ner always told me ter be careful ter do to uvvers wot they did ter me——"
"What you'd like them to do to you, I suppose you mean?"
"All right; 'ave it yer own way. It all comes ter the same thing. But 'e was only a blinkin' cab driver, so 'e couldn't know anythink abaht religion. I'm glad you've got that gel of Trailey's, though; she's a good un."
CHAPTER XV
Black Desolation
There were only four colours in Nature the next morning—an azure sky, a few banks of fleecy white cloud, some unburned patches of fawn-coloured grass, and a dead, black earth.
"The world's in mourning; let's hope it isn't for us," observed Mrs. Trailey to her husband as she viewed the funereal landscape from her tent door.
The transformation had left Trailey a little bewildered. He hated such rapid changes. From the wagon-pole, where he sat combing his whiskers and trimming his finger-nails, he looked round him as calmly as any surprised man can look.
"My dear," he said, "it's wonderful."