knocked against each other and were jerked back. Presently it bundled itself into an aged gallop, while Simon clicked at it through his scanty teeth.

"Nay, now, master, what are you at!" Sarah protested, gripping the rail. "We've no call to hurry ourselves, think on."

"It's yon danged car!" Simon growled, feeling somehow as though he were galloping, too. He was quite sure now that a boggle was hot on his track, and the sweat stood on his brow as he slapped and lashed. Losing his nerve completely, he got to his feet with a shout, at the same time waving the car to pass ahead. It obeyed instantly, drawing level in a breath, and just for a breath slowing again as it reached his side. The hired driver was wearing a cheerful grin, but the man leaning out of the back of the car was perfectly grave. He was a big man, tanned, with steady grey-blue eyes, fixed on the old couple with an earnest gaze. Simon, however, would not have looked at him for gold, and after its momentary hesitation, the car shot on. The horse felt its master drop back again in his seat, and subsided, panting, into its slowest crawl.

Sarah straightened her bonnet, and tugged at her mantle upon which Simon had collapsed. "Whatever took you to act like yon?" she asked. "There was nowt to put you about as I could see."

"It was yon danged car!" Simon muttered again, but beginning already to feel rather ashamed. "It give me the jumps, taking so long to get by. What, I got thinking after a bit it wasn't a motor-car at all! More like a hearse it seemed, when it ganged past,--a gert, black hearse wi' nid-noddin' feathers on top...." He let out a great sigh, mopping his face as if he would never stop. "Danged if yon new strap baint gone and give out first thing!"

He climbed down, grumbling at the new strap which had gone back on him so soon, and began to add a fresh ornamentation to the mended gear. The horse stood with drooped head, emitting great breaths which shook and stirred the trap. Simon's hands trembled as he worked at his woolly knot, his eyes still full of that vision of sweeping plumes. Further down the road the car had stopped again, but as soon as Simon had finished, it moved away. It went over the hill as if it indeed had wings,--feathery, velvet-black and soft on the misty air....

II

Another thing happened to them on the road to Witham, though it was even more trivial than the last. The first, perhaps, was meant for Simon,--that face coming out of the void and trying to look him in the eyes. The other,--a voice from the void,--was a call to the woman with the failing sight. But to most people there come these days of slight, blind, reasonless events. Something that is not so much memory as re-vision reaches out of the past into the present; faint foretellings shape themselves out of some far-off hour. And then on the following morning there is sun, and clear outlines and a blowing sky. The firm circlet of To-Day is bound again shining and hard about the narrow earth.

For a short time they seemed almost alone on the processional road. No more cars passed them, and only occasionally a bicycle or a trap. Simon felt more than ever ashamed of himself as his nerve steadied and his excitement cooled. He had made a bonny fool of himself, he thought, standing up and shouting as if he was cracked. Witham would snap at the tale like a meaty bone, and folk would be waiting to twit him when he got in. It wasn't as if he were in the mood for a joke, either, seeing how things were; he would find it hard to take it as it was meant. And there was one person at least to whom the tale would be Balm in Gilead for many a happy day. He hoped fervently that it might not reach her ears.

Sooner or later it would reach her, of course; everything that made mock of them always did. The most that could be hoped for was that they would not meet her to-day, backed by her usual sycophantic crowd. Sarah would never stand any nonsense from her to-day, depressed as she was by the trouble about her eyes. There would be a scuffle between them, as sure as eggs were eggs, and just when he wanted things smooth in that quarter, too. He thought of giving her a hint to be careful, and opened his mouth, and then decided to keep off the subject, and shut it again.

Not that they ever did keep off it, as he knew perfectly well. Sooner or later it was on their lips, and certainly always after a day at market. They had discussed it so often from every possible point that they did not always know which it was that spoke. They had long since forgotten from which of their minds the bitter, perpetual speeches had first been born. Often they waked in the night to talk of the hated thing, and slept and wakened only to talk of it again. There was nothing good that they had which it had not poisoned at the source, and no sorrow but was made a double sorrow thereby. There was scarcely one of their memories that did not ache because of that constant sword-point in its heart.

It was on market-day each week that their fount of bitterness was continually refreshed. They kept up the old habit for more reasons than one, but most of all because of this thing which hurt and cramped their lives. It was like a vice of some sort which had long become an imperative need. Each week they came home with the iron fresh sunk in their souls, and each week they went again to look on the thing that they both loathed.

Now they were right away from the marsh and the sands, and would not see them until they returned, although from the moor and fell-land surrounding Witham it was always possible to see the bay. Indeed, in this part of the little county it was hard to get away from the knowledge of the sea, and even further in, among the shouldering peaks, you had only to climb awhile to find the water almost within a throw. On days like this, however, even on the beach it was hard to tell which was water and which mist, and when at last the tide drew silently from beneath, those who looked at it from the hills could not tell whether it went or stayed.

Simon, looking drearily around, thought that the whole earth had a drowned appearance to-day. It reminded him of the marsh after it had been swamped by a flood, and the miserable land emerged soddenly as the sea drew back. Everything was so still, too, with the stillness of the dead or drugged. Only the mist moved steadily and of set purpose, though it was the purpose of a creature with shut eyes walking in its sleep.

Out of the low vapour softly roofing the fields a gull came flying slowly over their heads. First Simon saw the shadow of it huge upon the mist, and then it came swooping and circling until it hung above the road. Its long, pointed wings and drooping legs were magnified by the distorting air, and presently he could see the colour of its bill and the gleam of its expressionless eye. It moved in that lifeless atmosphere as a ship that has lost the wind moves still by its gathered momentum over a deadened sea, but when it came over the road it turned to follow the trap, instead of making away at an angle towards the west. Simon concluded that it must have lost its way in the mist, and was following them as sea-birds follow a boat, but presently he was reminded of the car in this leisurely gliding on their track. Like the car, too, it drew level at last, but this time he was not afraid. He looked up at it, indeed, but without much interest, watching its lone vagrancy with apathetic eyes. It was silent at first as it