TWO:"Did you think I was at the rear?"She locked up those treasures, and going to the window drew aside the curtain and looked out. The autumnal fall of the leaf from the trees in the garden had brought into view houses in the town hidden before; among these was St Thomass Vicarage, that stood slightly apart from the others and was easily recognisable. With the aid of an opera glass she could distinguish the windows, and{112} saw that a light was burning behind the blinds of his study. He had come in, then, and for a full minute she contemplated the luminous oblong. Later, she had sometimes seen that a window exactly above that was lit. She liked seeing that, for it meant that he was going to bed, and would soon be asleep, for he had mentioned that he went to sleep the moment he got into bed. Once she had watched till that light went out also.
THREE:While they were discussing him, he returned suddenly and said:
THREE:Mrs. Masters trembled a little under the rebuke, but she showed no sign of repentance. "I'm only repeating what's said," she remarked. "An' for all I know it might have been the Devil. It says in the Bible that he's to be unbound for a thousand years, and I'm sure he might just as well come here as elsewhere for a start. The place is wicked enough."The pair took our pace, the man plying me with questions, and his wife, in front, telling Lieutenant Durand all the rumors of the day. Her scant hair was of a scorched red tone, she was freckled down into her collar, her elbows waggled to the mare's jog, and her voice was as flat as a duck's. Her nag had trouble to keep up, and her tiny faded bonnet had even more to keep on. Yet the day was near when the touch of those freckled hands was to seem to me kinder than the breath of flowers, as they bathed my foul-smelling wounds, and she would say, in the words of the old song, "Let me kiss him for his mother," and I should be helpless to prevent her. By and by the man raised his voice:--
THREE:Close at hand is a stable where two beautiful ponies are kept. They are snowy white, and are consecrated to the goddess Ku-wanon, the deity of mercy, who is the presiding genius of the temple. They are in the care of a young girl, and it is considered a pious duty to feed them. Pease and beans are for sale outside, and many devotees contribute a few cash for the benefit of the sacred animals. If the poor beasts should eat a quarter of what is offered to them, or, rather, of what is paid for, they would soon die of overfeeding. It is shrewdly suspected that the grain is sold many times over, in consequence of a collusion between the dealers and the keeper of the horses. At all events, the health of the animals is regarded, and it would never do to give them all that is presented.
