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“Is this innocence or corruption?” wondered the schoolmaster.

But evidently the party did not know what the learned word “corruption” meant, and that was the reason why they were so merry.

By the time they were tired of playing “Third Man” tea was ready. The schoolmaster was puzzled to know where the cavaliers had learnt their fine manners, for they moved about on all fours to offer the girls sugar and cake; and the straps of their waistcoats stood out like handles.

“The males showing off before the females!” thought the schoolmaster. “They don’t know what they are in for.”

He noticed how the head of the family, the jolly fellow, waited on father and mother-in-law, wife, shop-assistants and servant girls: and whenever one of them begged him to help himself first, he invariably answered that there was plenty of time for that.

He watched the father-in-law peeling a willow branch to make a flute for the little boy; he watched the mother-in-law wash up as if she had been one of the servants. And he thought that there was something strange about selfishness, since it could be so cleverly disguised that it looked as if no one gave more than he received; for it must be selfishness, it couldn’t be anything else.

They played at forfeits and redeemed every forfeit with kisses, true, genuine, resounding kisses on the lips; and when the jolly book-keeper was made to kiss the old oak-tree, his conduct was too absurd for anything; he embraced and caressed the gnarled trunk as if it had been a girl whom he had met secretly; everybody shouted with laughter, for all knew how to do it, although none of them would have liked to be caught doing it.

The schoolmaster who had begun by watching the spectacle with critical eyes, fell more and more under the spell of it; he almost believed himself to be one of the party. He smiled at the sallies of the shop-assistants, and before an hour was gone the head of the family had won his whole sympathy. No one could deny that the man was a comedian of the first rank. He could play “Skin-the-cat”; he could “walk backwards,” “lie” on the tree-trunks, swallow coins, eat fire, and imitate all sorts of birds. And when he extracted a saffron cake from the dress of one of the girls and made it disappear in his right ear, the schoolmaster laughed until his empty inside ached.

Then the dancing began. The schoolmaster had read in Rabe’s grammar: Nemo saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit, and had always looked upon dancing as a species of insanity. True, he had watched puppies and calves dancing when they felt frisky, but he did not believe that Cicero’s maxim applied to the animal world, and he was in the habit of drawing a sharp line between men and animals. Now, as he sat watching these young people who were quite sober, and neither hungry nor thirsty, moving round and round to the slow measures of the concertina, he felt as if his soul were in a swing which was being kept going by his eyes and ears, and his right foot beat time gently on the springy turf.

He spent three hours musing and watching, then he rose. He found it almost difficult to tear himself away; it was just as if he were leaving a merry party to which he had been invited; but his mood had changed; he felt more reconciled. He was at peace with the world and pleasantly tired, as if he had been enjoying himself.

It was evening. Smart carriages passed him, the lady-occupants lolling on the back seats and looking in their long, white theatre wraps like corpses in their shrouds; it was fashionable then to look as if one had been exhumed. The schoolmaster, whose thoughts were running in another direction, was sure that the ladies must be bored to death and felt no trace of envy. Below the dusty highroad, far out on the sea, the steamers with their flags and brass bands were returning from their pleasure trips; cheers, strains of music and snatches of song were wafted by the sea breezes to the mountains and the Deer Park.