“Knew you’d like it, dear,” said Mr. Gleeson confidently.  “I declared the moment I saw the place, ‘Now this,’ I said to myself, ‘this will suit the dear wife down to the ground.’  Just look at that bit over there.  (Wait a moment, driver.)  Isn’t that simply—”

He gave a gesture which meant that the English language provided no adequate words.  His wife, with one hand upon his shoulder, offered an “Ah!” of content.

“You must paint this,” he went on, recovering powers of speech.  “You must bring your easel and your white umbrella some morning when I’m busy, and try to get this effect.  See the top of the church spire above the trees?”

“That there’s a oast house,” interrupted the driver.

“You will not forget that I shall have my p. 219duties in the village,” she reminded him.  “We are going to make life brighter, you know, for everybody.”

“True!” he admitted.  “It will require discretion.”

“And diplomacy.”

“Still, we’re not exactly amateurs.  We bring something like a ripe experience to the task.  This will be child’s play after London.  Think of the difference in numbers.  Driver, how many inhabitants are there in Murford Green?”

“Can’t say as I ever counted ’em.”

“But speaking approximately.”

“Well,” said the driver, with deliberation, “speaking approximately, I should say they was no better than they ought to be.  And you’ll excuse me, but I’ve got to get back to meet the five-eight, and if you and your lady could give me what you may call permission to go on now without any more pulling up, I shall jest do it.  Otherwise I shan’t, and then Miss Bulwer won’t let me never hear the last of it.  That’s what she won’t!”

“Who is Miss Bulwer?”

“Look ’ere,” argued the driver, half p. 220turning in his seat.  “I’ve answered a pretty tidy number of questions sence we started from the railway station, and I’m beginning to lose my voice, and I’m not far off from losing my temper.  But in reference to your question concerning, or regarding, or affecting Miss Bulwer, my answer is, you’ll jolly soon find out!  Is that good enough for you, or isn’t it?”

“Merely a surface manner,” explained Mr. Gleeson, as the open fly trundled on again.  “You don’t know these people, my dear.  A certain veneer of brusqueness, but underneath that good pure gold.  Simple natures, I admit, but as honest and straightforward—Wonder,” dropping his voice, “wonder how much he expects for this journey?”

“Pay him well,” suggested young Mrs. Gleeson, also in a whisper.  “We must make a good impression at the start.  Say eighteen-pence.”

“Fortunately,” resuming ordinary tones, “both you and I will be protected and saved by our keen sense of humour.”  He smiled.  “I expect our arrival will flutter Murford Green pretty considerably.  On an even surface the slightest ripple shows.”

p. 221Both stood up in the open carriage on finding that the prophecy seemed to receive full justification.  Twenty or thirty men and lads were rushing across the triangle of green, shouting wildly; in their hands they carried stout hammers and long-handled axes; women cheered from doorways of cottages.  A few were distracted temporarily by sight of the station fly, but, reproved by the others, they went on, atoning for the slight delay by shrieking more loudly than the rest.

“Anything on, driver?”

“Something coming off,” answered the man.  “I said what’d ’appen when people began to lock up gates that’d been open for gen’rations and gen’rations.  I warned ’em, but they wouldn’t take no notice.  And I ain’t of’en wrong, neither,” concluded the driver.

“Don’t be frightened, dear,” urged Mr. Gleeson.  “I’ll go out presently and set it to rights.  One wise word from an impartial person, and it will all be over.”

The driver said at the destination that, times without number, he had received three and six for the service, paid willingly; if the gentleman had no more silver he supposed he would have to be content with three shillings.  p. 222In reply to contentions, the driver asked whether Mr. Gleeson was aware of the price being asked, at the present moment, for oats, and Mr. Gleeson having to admit that his knowledge on this subject was incomplete, the driver retorted, “Very well then, what’s the use of arguing?  Why not pay up and look pleasant over it?”  The fare obeyed the first part of this recommendation.  The two maids (sent on in advance from Kensington) stood inside the gate, and caught the driver’s farewell remark.

“Really, ma’am,” said the elder primly, “the manners of these people!  I thought I knew something about language, but I’ve learnt something the three days we’ve been down here.  Had a pleasant journey?  Me and Sarah have both been feeling humpish.  I told her it would be all right soon as ever you and the master came.”

Mr. Gleeson set out, immediately after a meal, to arrange the question that was troubling Murford Green.  He had changed into a Norfolk suit, and as a further concession smoked a briar pipe; with a thick walking-stick he prodded at dock-leaves on the green.  Near one corner of the triangle a meeting p. 223was being held, with a large-faced man shouting excitedly from a Windsor chair.  Mr. Gleeson, crossing over, added himself to the audience.

“Well spoke,” sang the crowd, as the large man appeared to finish.  “Very well putt!”

“There’s my shop ’cross there,” shouted the orator, pointing to windows that had “Crutchley, Butcher,” in marble letters overhead.  “If any one thinks I’ve broke the law, that’s where they can serve a summons.”

The crowd looked around at the village constable.  The constable frowned with the air of a man who had not entirely succeeded in making up his mind.

“We’ve got our rights,” the butcher went on, “and I defy any one to say the contrairy.  If there’s anybody here who don’t agree with me, now’s the time for him to step up and express his opinion.  Free speech is our motto and—   What name, please?”

“My name is Gleeson,” announced the newcomer, “and I should like to say a few words.”

“For the agitation, may I ask, or against?”

“My attitude,” said Mr. Gleeson, “is that of a peace-maker.”

The crowd grumbled; the butcher called for order.  Mr. Gleeson ascended the chair.

p. 224When, at the end of ten minutes, he stepped down, only the constable was there to give him a hand.  The constable accounted for the dispersal of the crowd by pointing out that supper time was near, and on Mr. Gleeson asking whether he thought the words spoken had produced any effect, replied, cautiously, that it was difficult to say.  The constable, as one who had looked on at many struggles, gave the opinion that you could not do better than let the parties fight it out and, this done, then possibly, but not certainly, came the moment for you to interfere.  Mr. Gleeson felt bound, in reply, to mention that he had in his time been called to the bar; intimated that, in circumstances such as these, it seemed more fitting that he should give advice than take it.

“Now,” admitted the constable, “now you’re putting a different light, sir, on the matter.  To tell the truth, I wasn’t quite aweer who I was talking to.  I look on your arrival here, sir, as particular fortunate, because you can back me up in any action I see fit to take.”

“Any correct action.”

“That’s the only way I’ve got of doing p. 225things.  I’ve never yet made a blunder, and I don’t suppose now I ever shall.”

“We are all of us liable to err,” pointed out Mr. Gleeson.

“Being liable to do a thing,” retorted the constable judicially, “and actually doing it, is two entirely different matters.  Shall I tell you, sir, what idea has just come into my head?”

Permission given.

“This is the way I get ’old of notions,” went on the other self-exultantly.  “I may be walking along a quiet lane, or standing here, as I am now, and all at once they come into my noddle like a—well, more like a flash of lightning than anything else.  It’s won’erful.  Gives me quite a turn for the moment.  Guess what the notion is that I’ve just thought of.”

The gentleman from London excused himself from making the attempt, and found his arm hooked confidentially by the handle of the policeman’s stick.

“I’ll bring over to your ’ouse this very evening two of the leaders of this movement, or agitation, or whatever you like to call it.  You take down their evidence and to-morrow p. 226you go and call on Miss Bulwer.  She’s the lady who’s been trying to stop up this path.  You talk it over with her, you do, and settle it, and then announce your decision.  As easy,” concluded the policeman, detecting hesitation, “as easy as saying the A.B.C.”

Two days later the constable, on receiving news from Crutchley, Butcher, that the affair had been amicably settled, was able to state that the village could reckon itself once more in debt to him, and mentioned the case of a colleague at Middlesham who had recently been presented by grateful inhabitants with a bicycle.  Later came information that Miss Bulwer had discharged her housemaid, with a month’s wages in lieu of notice; the driver of the station fly, in the course of a chat with his fare, ascertained the cause for her dismissal was that Miss Bulwer had understood her (the housemaid) to say, before the Londoner’s call, that she believed Mr. Gleeson was a bachelor, whereas the departing housemaid declared she had only mentioned that he was clean-shaven.  All the same the decision of the arbitrator stood; Miss Bulwer was declared to be the owner of the right of way, but graciously permitted the inhabitants to use it.  p. 227Few of the villagers had walked along the path before the locked gate was placed there, and no one showed any anxiety to do so now that it was thrown open.

“A most satisfactory beginning,” said Mr. Gleeson to his young wife.  “Nothing could be more auspicious.  Now, we are about to take up the task of breaking down some barriers on our own account.  Your help, dear, will be specially needed.”

“I haven’t your tact.”

“You have something better, my love,” he replied gallantly.  “You have charm.  Together we ought to do a great work.”

“The place is beautifully quiet now,” she remarked.

“‘If there’s peace to be found in the world,’” quoted Mr. Gleeson, “‘a heart that is humble may hope for it here.’”

“The girls are complaining.”

“They will soon become accustomed to the village and its surroundings.  It takes time for a Londoner to settle down.  The silence,” he went on, going to the window, “is to me most impressive.”

“It appears to strike them as being dull.”

That evening, when the two were consulting p. 228the local directory, taking down names and perfecting arrangements, a sudden uproar started near the open windows, and the servants came hurrying in to make protest against the noise; Mary and Emma urged that the master ought to go out and see what was happening.  Looking through the open window the group could see that every man, every lad, every woman carried articles capable of producing clamour: some bore dustpans, some toy drums, some fire-irons.  Mr. Gleeson felt able to give an explanation to the affrighted woman.  It had, he believed, to do with bees; not quite certain about details, he felt sure it concerned bees—swarming or something of the kind.

“I don’t want to be stung,” said cook nervously.  “Wasps always make straight for me!”

The crowd stopped at a house facing the green, and there the hullabaloo increased to such an extent that Mr. Gleeson, finding his cap, announced an intention of putting a stop to the row without further delay.  The women expected the turmoil would cease directly he reached the scene; they observed that he spoke to one or two, remonstrating with them; p. 229the folk seemed to be making an explanation, and he again used argumentative gestures; they appeared to order him to go away and, after one or two further efforts, he retired.  The uproar continued.

“Not bees,” he announced, entering the room.  “No!  My dear, just send the maids to the kitchen.”

The girls went.

“A primitive custom,” he explained, “with which I was not previously acquainted.  It seems a retired farmer living at the house in question lost his wife three months ago.”

“Surely a strange way of expressing sympathy.”

“That is not exactly the idea.  The retired farmer has married again—married the nurse, and the village thinks it not quite right.”

“It isn’t right,” she declared warmly.  “I consider the villagers are quite ju............