‘Yes?’ asked Watchman as Abel paused and looked fixedly at the ceiling. ‘What about Decima?’

‘That’s the queerest touch of the lot, sir,’ said Abel.

Watchman, lighting his pipe, kept his eye on his host and saw that he now looked profoundly uncomfortable.

‘Well?’ Watchman repeated.

‘It be what she says about wedlock,’ Abel muttered.

‘What does she say?’ asked Watchman sharply.

‘Be shot if she haven’t got some new-fangled notion about wedlock being no better than a name for savagery. Talks wild trash about freedom. To my way of thinking the silly maiden don’t know what she says.’

‘What,’ asked Watchman, ‘does Will say to all this?’

‘Don’t like it. The chap wants to be tokened and hear banns read, like any other poor toad, for all his notions. He wants no free love for his wife or himself. He won’t talk to me, not a word, but Miss Dessy does, so open and natural as a daisy. Terrible nonsense it be, I tells her, and right down dangerous into bargain. Hearing her chatter, you might suppose she’s got some fancy-chap up her sleeve. Us knows better of course, but it’s an uncomfortable state of affairs and seemingly no way out. Tell you what, sir, I do blame this Legge for the way things are shaping. Will’d have settled down, he was settling down, afore Bob Legge come yurr. But now he’ve stirred up all their revolutionary notions again, Miss Dessy’s along with the rest. I don’t fancy Legge. Never have. Not for all he’m a masterpiece with darts. My way of thinking, he’m a cold calculating chap and powerful bent on having his way. Well, thurr ‘tis, and talking won’t mend it.’

Watchman walked to the door and Abel followed him. They stood looking up the road to Coombe Tunnel.

‘Daily-buttons!’ exclaimed Abel, ‘talk of an angel and there she be. That’s Miss Dessy, the dinky little dear. Coming in to do her marketing.’

‘So it is,’ said Watchman. ‘Well, Abel, on second thoughts I believe I’ll go and have a look at that picture.’

III

But Watchman did not go directly to Coombe Rock. He lingered for a moment until he had seen Decima Moore go in at the post-office door, and then he made for the tunnel. Soon the darkness swallowed him, his footsteps rang hollow on the wet stone floor, and above him, a luminous disc, shone the top entry. Watchman emerged, blinking, into the dust and glare of the high road. To his left, the country rolled gently away to Illington, to his right, a path led round the cliffs to Coombe Rock, and then wound inland to Cary Edge Farm where the Moores lived.