“Could you show me her house? You see,” he went on simply, “I’m a very unhappy man. I went away, but I’ve carried her in my heart all the time, but it’s taken me a long, long time to find her. I’m a very tired, unhappy man.”
William looked at him with some scorn.
“You was soft,” he said. “P’raps it was ’cause of her hair not curlin’?”
“Where is she?” said the man.
“In there,” said William pointing to the enclosure sacred to the King of Fêtes. “I’ll get her if you like.”
“Thank you,” said the man.
William, still grudging his entrance money, walked round the enclosure till he found a weak spot in the hedge behind a tent. Through this he scrambled with great difficulty, leaving his cap en route, blackening and scratching his face, tearing his knickers in two places, and his jersey in three. But William, who could not see himself, fingering tenderly the price of admission in his pocket, felt that it had been trouble well expended. He met the Vicar’s wife. She was raffling a tea-cosy highly decorated with red and yellow and purple tulips on a green ground. She wore her Sale of Work smile. William accosted her.
“He wants her. He’s come back. Could you get her?” he said. “He’s had the right one in his inside all the time. He said so....”
But she had no use for William. William did not look as if he was good for a one-and-six raffle ticket for a tea-cosy.
“Sweet thing!” she murmured vaguely, and effusively caressed his disordered hair as she passed.