“When you get to my age, you will find that things are not always what they seem,” said Mrs. Jebb vaguely.
But she shook her head as she took up the bottles, and again as she secreted them with her own fair fingers in the dust-bin.
CHAPTER XVII
Frost came in the night and the next morning was fine and glorious; the aromatic scent of autumn mingled with that of a brushwood fire in Mrs. Simpson’s garden, and the smoke of it rose like incense to the god of harvest, straight up into a blue sky flecked with white clouds which were great brooding angels with their faces towards heaven.
When one man, meeting, said to another, ‘Fine morning!’ it was a Laus Dei that he meant, and the crimson beeches glowing upon the green country were lamps of festival.
And something of that splendour which has fired the souls of men like love and battle caught hold of Andy as he walked down the lane in the sunshine. “Oh, all ye works of the Lord—praise ye the Lord—bless Him and magnify Him for ever!” He knew how the man felt who wrote that, and was thrilled with that strange sense of nearness which men have when they sing a song together, the words swelling up; but it is not the words that move them so—it is the sense of having got a little nearer together in the immense loneliness of the Universe.
And some of this brief ecstasy was Andy’s as he walked towards Mrs. Simpson’s cottage in the sunshine.
At the turn he met Jimmy Simpson dragging a new-painted horse and cart but otherwise unattended, even by the faithful Sally. His golden curls shone in the morning sun, and he, too, seemed to come along in a sort of glory. When he reached Andy he said nothing, but looked from the piebald creature to the face high above him in breathless expectation.
“What a beauty! I never saw such a horse and cart in my life,” said Andy, who loved children enough to know what was expected of him.