"Alan!"
He turned. There was Miss Vesey and her father. He could hardly believe that it was, but it was. The lady was brilliantly attired, perhaps as a set-off to her father. That worthy gentleman resembled nothing so much as what, in former days, they would have called a broken-down hedge parson. He was evidently meant for a clergyman, sartorially. That is, the conception was clear enough, it was the result which was unsatisfactory.
"Your hand, my son!"
He held out his hand after the manner of the fathers in old comedy. But unfortunately he did not wait for the curate to give him his hand, he seized it, and shook it up and down--pump-handle fashion. And while the father was engaged in this edifying performance, the daughter flung her arms about the curate's neck.
"My beloved!" she cried.
If there was any there to behold, they beheld what they had never seen before--the curate embraced as a curate never had been embraced in public, at Swaffham-on-Sea.
"Let me go!" he stammered.
And in due time the lady let him go. Under the circumstances he kept his presence of mind very well--for him.
"You--you'll find the rectory about a quarter of a mile in front of you, just round the bend in the road. If--if you'll excuse me, I have a most important visit I must make."
Miss Vesey's father slapped him heartily--too heartily!--upon the back, again after the fashion of the comedy fathers.