Children of the Dear Cotswolds

by L. Allen Harker

Mrs. Button at the lodge saw him go by as she was hanging out sheets on the line, and they "changed the weather and passed the time of day," but she only thought he was going across to the village shop for something, so she was not curious or suspicious either.

At the "Cat and Compasses" Paul stopped. Mr. Mumford, the landlord, was standing in the doorway leaning on a hoe. They greeted each other suitably, and Paul remarked, "Miss Goodlake's stopped in bed. She's got a headache——"

"Sorry to 'ear it, I'm sure," Mr. Mumford replied sympathetically. "Per'aps the sun 'ave been a bit too strong for she."

"Janey and Fiammetta," Paul continued, unconcerned as to the causes of Miss Goodlake's headache, "are doing their lessons alone. They're hearing each other, and they said I disturbed them, so Thor and I've come off together."

He paused and looked expectantly at Mr. Mumford, as though waiting for a suggestion of some sort.

Mr. Mumford is shaped rather like a pair of bellows with two substantial legs instead of one slim one. He completely filled his own doorway, and perspiring and benevolent, looked down at Paul.

"I wish as I could ast you to come in and set a bit, Master Paul," he said apologetically, "but my missus she be a-cleanin', and when a woman gets a-cleanin', the 'ouse beant no place for the likes of we. Not a moment's peace or quiet to be 'ad. You knows what 'a' be, doan't 'ee, Master Paul?"

Here Mr. Mumford winked at Paul, who wagged his head sympathetically as the summer stillness was broken by the clashing of pails, the sound of falling brooms, and a strident voice exclaimed "Sammle! you get along down garden an' weed them there parsnips. That bed be disgrace to be'old. You take 'oe along; be off now, don't 'ee stand gossipin' there, ye lazy varmint, you!"

With a groan Mr. Mumford seized the hoe, turned back into the bar, and disappeared from view. Paul, congratulating Thor on the fact that neither of them had a missus who insisted on the weeding of parsnips on such a hot morning, strolled through the village. It was not yet ten o'clock, and no one was to be seen. All the women were busy indoors, the men at work. The sky was blue, the sun was hot, and a ribbon of white road lay before them "beckoning and winding." So he and Thor set off at a good pace, and Paul muttered as he went, "He would have given his housekeeper and his niece for a fair opportunity of kicking the traitor Galabon," adding thoughtfully, "They'd be about as bad as a missus, I expect."

Of course the quotation came from the Book of the Moment, which, just then, happened to be Don Quixote. He had found the Mad Knight in the attic, an old translation in four volumes, published in 1810, with a map and many steel engravings. He read it right through with his usual absorbed interest, but expressed regret that there was such "an awful lot about lovers and that." The Don's passion for the peerless Dulcinea he did not attempt to understand, and the long love stories of other people interspersed throughout bored him. But the adventures thrilled him, and Sancho Panza's was a character that he got on terms with at once. There was something dear and familiar about the sturdy Sancho: something of Mr. Mumford.