CONTENTS

CHAPTER

  1. [Mrs. Birkin's Bonnet]
  2. [A Philosopher of the Cotswolds]
  3. [Especially Those]
  4. [At Blue House Lock]
  5. [Keturah]
  6. [Mrs. Cushion's Children]
  7. [Sanctuary]
  8. [A Cotswold Barmaid]
  9. [Fuzzy Wuzzy's Watch]
  10. [The Dark Lady]
  11. [Her First Appearance]
  12. ["Our Fathers Have Told Us"]
  13. [A Giotto of the Cotswolds]
  14. [The Day After]
  15. [A Coup d'État]
  16. [The Staceys of Elcombe House]
  17. [A Soldier's Button]
  18. [Paul and the Playwright]
  19. [A Misfit]
  20. [The Contagion of Honour]

CHILDREN OF THE DEAR COTSWOLDS

I

MRS. BIRKIN'S BONNET

The very first time that the baby went out the monthly nurse carried her to see Mrs. Birkin; and as she marched with slow and stately tread up the narrow garden path to the cottage, a swarm of bees settled all over both infant and nurse. Fortunately the nurse was a Cotswold woman, and knew full well that if a swarm of bees settles upon an infant during the first month of its existence, and departs without stinging, it is a very lucky omen. And people born in other parts of the world will agree as to the good fortune of the latter contingency.

Mrs. Birkin in her porch, and the nurse in her cloak of bees, stood like two statues in the hot sunshine of that September afternoon, the nurse hardly daring to breathe, lest by some inadvertent movement she should change so stupendous a piece of luck into disaster.

Presently the brown cloud lifted itself from the white bundle in the anxious nurse's arms and passed with its own triumphant music to some other place.

The baby still slept sweetly, oblivious alike of good or evil fortune. Mrs. Birkin, her ruddy cheeks pale under the weather-stains of years, came forth from her cottage as the nurse tottered to meet her, holding out the baby and exclaiming hysterically: 'Take her, take her, and let me sit down somewhere, for my legs won't bear me no longer!'