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Wheat, oats, and barley stood once more erect, roots were saved, and the young vicar of Ipscombe was reflecting as he walked towards Great End Farm that his harvest festival sermon might now after all be rather easier to write than had seemed probable during the foregoing anxious weeks of chill and storm.
All the Colonel's keepers under fifty had gone to fight; and there was left only an old head keeper, with one decrepit helper, who shot the scanty game which still survived on strict business principles, to eke out the household rations of the big house. The Ipscombe woods were rarely visited.
The northwest wind rushing over the miniature pass just beyond the farm, where the road dropped from the level of the upland in which Ipscombe lay, to the level of the plain, was blowing fiercely on the square of buildings which stood naked and undefended against weather from that quarter of the heaven, while protected by the hills and the woods from the northeast.
Halsey said "No," holding his handsome old head rather high. Had he belonged to a higher station in life, his natural reticence, and a fastidious personal dignity would have carried him far. To a modern statesman they are at least as valuable as brains. In the small world of Ipscombe they only meant that Halsey himself held rather scornfully aloof from the current village gossip, and got mocked at for his pains. The ordinary human instinct revenged itself, however, when he was tête-
Delane, despising the young man for a chattering fool, listened, nevertheless, with absorbed attention to every item of his tale. Presently Dempsey said with a laugh, "There's been people in Ipscombe all these years as always would have it old Watson walked. I know the names of three people at least as have sworn to seein' 'im.
At last he crossed over towards an elderly man in company with a young soldier, who was walking lamely with a stick. "Excuse me," he said, formally, addressing the elder man, "but am I right for Ipscombe?" "That you are, muster. The next turnin' to the right'll bring yer to it." Peter Betts looked the stranger over as he spoke, with an inquisitive eye. "You've come from the meeting, I suppose?"
But finding himself sent to Ralstone, which was only five miles from Ipscombe, he saw no reason to wait, and he had already given all the information he could to the superintendent of police at Millsborough. His grandfather had signed a written confession before his death, and John Dempsey had handed it over.
The vicar and his sister Eleanor were sitting at breakfast in the small Georgian house, which, as the vicarage, played a still important part in the village of Ipscombe.
A good mile to Ipscombe, and near a mile beyont. I didn't want to come, but my old woman she nagged me to come an' see her 'ome." And with another nod, the old man turned into the public, where his mates were already enjoying the small beer of the moment. For a few minutes, Delane strolled down the main road in silence, the child playing at his heels.
Most of the house had been pulled down, but Colonel Shepherd's grandfather had retained part of it, and turned it into two cottages known as 1 and 2 Ipscombe Place which for all their drawbacks were much in demand in the village, and conferred a certain distinction on their occupants. Mrs.
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