The flowers were all in gayest bloom, and the creepers on the walls of the house were bursting into tufts of young green. A broad gravel-walk ran from end to end of the facade, terminating in a large conservatory. In the walk were three people pacing up and down. Lady Constantine’s was the central figure, her brother being on one side of her, and on the other a stately form in a corded shovel-hat of glossy beaver and black breeches. This was the Bishop. Viviette carried over her shoulder a sunshade lined with red, which she twirled idly. They were laughing and chatting gaily, and when the group approached the churchyard many of their remarks entered the silence of the church tower through the ventilator of the window.
The conversation was general, yet interesting enough to Swithin. At length Louis stepped upon the grass and picked up something that had lain there, which turned out to be a bowl: throwing it forward he took a second, and bowled it towards the first, or jack. The Bishop, who seemed to be in a sprightly mood, followed suit, and bowled one in a curve towards the jack, turning and speaking to Lady Constantine as he concluded the feat. As she had not left the gravelled terrace he raised his voice, so that the words reached Swithin distinctly.
‘Do you follow us?’ he asked gaily.
‘I am not skilful,’ she said. ‘I always bowl narrow.’
The Bishop meditatively paused.
‘This moment reminds one of the scene in Richard the Second,’ he said. ‘I mean the Duke of York’s garden, where the queen and her two ladies play, and the queen says—
“What sport shall we devise here in this garden,
To drive away the heavy thought of care?”
To which her lady answers, “Madam, we’ll play at bowls.”’
‘That’s an unfortunate quotation for you,’ said Lady Constantine; ‘for if I don’t forget, the queen declines, saying, “Twill make me think the world is full of rubs, and that my fortune runs against the bias.”’
‘Then I cite mal à propos. But it is an interesting old game, and might have been played at that very date on this very green.’