By this time Potts had wheeled round; he had walked across the pavement to the paling fence that ran beside. A piece of light grass pushed through the fence and some slender silky daisies. Suddenly he saw a bee alight on one of the daisies and the flower leaned over, swayed, shook, while the little bee clung and rocked. And as it flew away the petals fluttered as if joyfully.... Just for an instant Potts dropped into the world where this happened. He brought from it the timid smile with which he walked back to the car. But now everybody had disappeared except one young girl who stood beside the empty car reading.
At the tail of the procession came Potts in a cassock so much too large for him that it looked like a night-shirt and you felt that he ought to be carrying not a hymn and a prayer book but a candle. His voice was a very light plaintive tenor. It surprised everybody. It seemed to surprise him, too. But it was so plaintive that when he cried “for the wings, for the wings of a dove” the ladies in the congregation wanted to club together and buy him a pair.
Lino’s nose quivered so pitifully, there was such a wistful, timid look in his eyes, that Potts’ heart was wrung. But of course he would not show it. “Well,” he said sternly, “I suppose you’d better come home.” And he got up off the bench. Lino got up, too, but stood still, holding up a paw.
“But there’s one thing,” said Potts, turning and facing him squarely, “that we’d better be clear about before you do come. And it’s this.” He pointed his finger at Lino who started as though he expected to be shot. But he kept his bewildered wistful eyes upon his master. “Stop this pretence of being a fighting dog,” said Potts more sternly than ever. “You’re not a fighting dog. You’re a watch dog. That’s what you are. Very well. Stick to it. But it’s this infernal boasting I can’t stand. It’s that that gets me.”
In the moment’s pause that followed while Lino and his master looked at each other it was curious how strong a resemblance was between them. Then Potts turned again and made for home.
And timidly, as though falling over his own paws, Lino followed after the humble little figure of his master....
SUCH A SWEET OLD LADY
Why did old Mrs. Travers wake so early nowadays? She would like to have slept for another three hours at least. But no, every morning at almost precisely the same time, at half-past four, she was wide awake. For—nowadays, again—she woke always in the same way, with a slight start, a small shock, lifting her head from the pillow with a quick glance as if she fancied someone had called her, or as if she were trying to remember for certain whether this was the same wallpaper, the same window she had seen last night before Warner switched off the light.... Then the small, silvery head pressed the white pillow again and just for a moment, before the agony of lying awake began, old Mrs. Travers was happy. Her heart quietened down, she breathed deeply, she even smiled. Yet once more the tide of darkness had risen, had floated her, had carried her away; and once more it had ebbed, it had withdrawn, casting her up where it had found her, shut in by the same wallpaper, stared at by the same window—still safe—still there!
Now the church clock sounded from outside, slow, languid, faint, as if it chimed the half hour in its sleep. She felt under the pillow for her watch; yes, it said the same. Half-past four. Three and a half hours before Warner came in with her tea. Oh dear, would she be able to stand it? She moved her legs restlessly. And, staring at the prim, severe face of the watch, it seemed to her that the hands—the minute hand especially—knew that she was watching them and held back—just a very little—on purpose.... Very strange, she had never got over the feeling that watch hated her. It had been Henry’s. Twenty years ago, when standing by poor Henry’s bed, she had taken it into her hands for the first time and wound it, it had felt cold and heavy. And two days later, when she undid a hook of her crape bodice and thrust it inside, it had lain in her bosom like a stone.... It had never felt at home there. Its place was—ticking, keeping perfect time, against Henry’s firm ribs. It had never trusted her, just as he had never trusted her in those ways. And on the rare occasions when she had forgotten to wind it, she had felt a pang of almost terror, and she had murmured as she fitted the little key: “Forgive me, Henry!”