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“Wouldn’t they call it a liberty now?” said he.

“But I liked him.”

“But you didn’t own him at the date of his death.”

“That wouldn’t keep me away. Only, they made such a fuss about the watching”–she caught her breath–“it might be ostentatious from that point of view, too. Oh, George”–she reached for his hand–“we’re two little orphans moving in worlds not realized, and we shall make some bad breaks. But we’re going to have the time of our lives.”

“We’ll run up to London to-morrow, and see if we can hurry those English law solicitors. I want to get to work.”

They went. They suffered many things ere they returned across the fields in a fly one Saturday night, nursing a two by two-and-a-half box of deeds and maps–lawful owners of Friars Pardon and the five decayed farms therewith.

“I do most sincerely ‘ope and trust you’ll be ‘appy, Madam,” Mrs. Cloke gasped, when she was told the news by the kitchen fire.

“Goodness! It isn’t a marriage!” Sophie exclaimed, a little awed; for to them the joke, which to an American means work, was only just beginning.

“If it’s took in a proper spirit”–Mrs. Cloke’s eye turned toward her oven.

“Send and have that mended to-morrow,” Sophie whispered.

“We couldn’t ‘elp noticing,” said Cloke slowly, “from the times you walked there, that you an’ your lady was drawn to it, but–but I don’t know as we ever precisely thought–” His wife’s glance checked him.

“That we were that sort of people,” said George. “We aren’t sure of it ourselves yet.”

“Perhaps,” said Cloke, rubbing his knees, “just for the sake of saying something, perhaps you’ll park it?”

“What’s that?” said George.

“Turn it all into a fine park like Violet Hill”–he jerked a thumb to westward–“that Mr. Sangres bought. It was four farms, and Mr. Sangres made a fine park of them, with a herd of faller deer.”

“Then it wouldn’t be Friars Pardon,” said Sophie. “Would it?”

“I don’t know as I’ve ever heard Pardons was ever anything but wheat an’ wool. Only some gentlemen say that parks are less trouble than tenants.” He laughed nervously. “But the gentry, o’ course, they keep on pretty much as they was used to.”

“I see,” said Sophie. “How did Mr. Sangres make his money?”

“I never rightly heard. It was pepper an’ spices, or it may ha’ been gloves. No. Gloves was Sir Reginald Liss at Marley End. Spices was Mr. Sangres. He’s a Brazilian gentleman–very sunburnt like.”

“Be sure o’ one thing. You won’t ‘ave any trouble,” said Mrs. Cloke, just before they went to bed.

Now the news of the purchase was told to Mr. and Mrs. Cloke alone at 8 P.M. of a Saturday. None left the farm till they set out for church next morning. Yet when they reached the church and were about to slip aside into their usual seats, a little beyond the font, where they could see the red-furred tails of the bellropes waggle and twist at ringing time, they were swept forward irresistibly, a Cloke on either flank (and yet they had not walked with the Clokes), upon the ever-retiring bosom of a black-gowned verger, who ushered them into a room of a pew at the head of the left aisle, under the pulpit.

“This,” he sighed reproachfully, “is the Pardons’ Pew,” and shut them in.

They could see little more than the choir boys in the chancel, but to the roots of the hair of their necks they felt the congregation behind mercilessly devouring them by look.

“When the wicked man turneth away.” The strong, alien voice of the priest vibrated under the hammer-beam roof, and a loneliness unfelt before swamped their hearts, as they searched for places in the unfamiliar Church of England service. The Lord’s Prayer “Our Father, which art”–set the seal on that desolation. Sophie found herself thinking how in other lands their purchase would long ere this have been discussed from every point of view in a dozen prints, forgetting that George for months had not been allowed to glance at those black and bellowing head-lines. Here was nothing but silence–not even hostility! The game was up to them; the other players hid their cards and waited. Suspense, she felt, was in the air, and when her sight cleared, saw, indeed, a mural tablet of a footless bird brooding upon the carven motto, ” Wayte awhyle–wayte awhyle.”