"I want to talk to you."
Her heart beat faster. Something was coming—What?
Alfred led the way to a hurdler's hut, a rough shed, where the lovers sat down upon a heap of dry chips. A delicious smell of bark filled the air. George Mucklow had worked here often, before he was dragooned into the Army. With the smell of bark, dominating it, rose the odour of damp earth, always so significant, bearing its double message. From earth we have come; to it we must return. Fancy's sensitive nose could detect yet another odour. An ancient coat, much soiled by time and weather, had been thrown upon the pile of chips. In an olfactory sense the coat was eloquent of labour, of long perspiring hours and all that such hours hold. Fancy's nostrils were not offended. But she refused to sit on it. Alfred, wearing his Sunday best, was not so particular.
He wasted little time in preliminaries. And he spoke with a geniality assumed, as Fancy guessed, for her benefit.
"The young Captain," he began, "has stirred us all up with his pleasant tongue. Now don't jump! Let me tell my tale."
He told it simply. Upon the previous Friday, it appeared, Alfred had fallen into talk with the Pavey boys, who worked on a farm between Nether-Applewhite and Salisbury. The Paveys were reckoned by Sir Geoffrey to be stout specimens of sound breeding. Jemima Pavey, it may be recalled, "walked out" with William Busketts, the odd man. It is likely, therefore, that the enlistment of William affected profoundly Jemima's brothers, both single, both of military age. Alfred, urged on, no doubt, by Lionel Pomfret, had taken upon himself the task of persuading the Paveys to follow William to the wars. According to Alfred, a hot discussion had ensued. The Paveys were regarded by the Squire as sound in body but weak and plastic of mind. Wiser men than the Autocrat of Nether-Applewhite consistently underrated the intelligence of young men like the Paveys, abnormally acute when stimulated by self-interest. Ultimately, so Alfred said, the Paveys had twitted him offensively upon the fact that he preached what he did not practise. And, oddly enough, poor Alfred was not prepared for this sudden turning of tables. He, too, was single and of military age. The fact that he happened to be engaged in a lucrative business served to sharpen railing tongues. At long last, after much vituperation (as Alfred admitted) on both sides, the Paveys had delivered a momentous ultimatum. They pledged themselves to enlist at once, if Alfred agreed to join them. More, they were prepared to answer for half-a-dozen others. To gain time for thought, Alfred invited them to obtain some similar pledge from these others. And, before Service that morning, the pledge had been forthcoming. In time, if Alfred donned khaki, eight of the best would follow so striking an example. Alfred concluded pleasantly:
"You see, Fancy, that I'm up against it."
Engrossed with his own exciting narrative, he had failed to notice her. From the beginning of the tale to the end, she never moved. The impending sword had fallen upon her frail body, lacerating cruelly every fibre of her being. All fears, all sensibilities which from birth had differentiated her from more robust young women, sensibilities which dwelt upon things spiritual rather than material, sensibilities which had been further quickened by her father's unmerited misfortunes, constraining her early in life to envisage the future as likely to hold more pain than pleasure, these rose up and choked utterance. Had Alfred looked at her, at this poignant moment, his decision—not as yet reached—-might have been different. He looked away from her, staring through the open side of the hut, seeing the rows and rows of trees, standing like soldiers, awaiting the inevitable axe.
Presently Fancy said quietly:
"Have you spoken to your mother? Does she know?"