When Basil went up into the pulpit the Squire quietly folded a silk handkerchief as a cushion to protect the back of his head from the hard oak of the pew, and slumbered peacefully till at the Rector's "Fifthly, and in conclusion," the stir of relief that ran through the congregation awoke him, as it usually did. Thorpe waited in the churchyard for Mrs Estcourt, and walked with her as far as the wicket-gate, his own carriage waiting at the road entrance. There at the wicket the group paused a moment on the edge of the green fields. The sweetness of the air coming from the Downs, after the close and yet chilly atmosphere of the church, was in itself an exquisite pleasure. The larks still sang, the sun still shone, and the clouds came over the hill. Yet there was something more beautiful still in the mantling colour of Margaret's soft check. Youth and love--youth and love and May-time! Cuckoo--cuckoo! from the bird on the elm below the hill. "O, look!" said Mrs Estcourt, suddenly, in some alarm, yet laughing. "My poor shepherd"--for Jabez worked for her. Wildly he fled over grassy grave and tombstone, chased by a mob of smock-frocks and boys yelling "Fol-de-rol-cob!" at his heels, till, reaching the wall, he leaped, hitched his toe in the coping, and fell prone among the docks and nettles and pigs. The Squire laughed heartily. By-and-by, as he leaned back in his carriage, the thought came into his mind that this was human life in little. First, pathos in the memory of his old friend; next, love--for he shrewdly suspected Geoffrey and Val--and beside that love the grim tomb and sad low mound; finally, the grotesque. Wherefore the old monks, seeing that all life came to the church in their day, carved fantastic faces on the gargoyles grinning down, sneering and mocking at it. And even sweet young love brought its regret. "For," thought he to himself, as he narrowly scanned the faces of the young men sitting opposite, "I fancy I detect a coldness and distance already between these boys, who used to be more than brothers. Margaret has come between them." CHAPTER TWO. "THE SWEET NEW GRASS WITH FLOWERS." Baa--baa! A long-drawn pettish bleating that sometimes sounded absurdly like the "Ma--ma!" of a spoilt child. The lambs gambolled in the genial sunshine over the daisies; the ewes, arrived at the age of common sense, fed steadily on the young sweet grass, and did not notice the flowers.