Though the old vicar has held his post here for nearly half a century, and is better acquainted with the parish than almost any other, there is just this one aspect of life in Windlecombe which must be to him for ever a sealed book. When once he has got his little flock together for morning service, with the church-door shut upon them, the village and all its doings pass, for the time being, out of his ken. On wet Sundays, and on the great church festivals, he knows that many accustomed corners—my own included—will be as infallibly occupied as they are at other times unvaryingly empty: and thereof he never makes either complaint or question. He goes on his way, never doubting but there is some saving good somewhere in the worst of us, and whole-heartedly loving us all; while we, the black sheep, who would sacrifice for him our right hands, our money, our very lives even, anything but our fine Sunday mornings, go our ways too, satisfied—if there is meaning in looks—of his secret sympathy. For there never was human man, whether lay or clerical, who, of a fine Sunday morning, believed himself so nearly at one with his Maker on his knees in a dusty pew, as abroad in the vast green church of an English country-side. I had gone no more than a dozen paces over the level, worn grass of the green, when I stopped to look about me, knowing well what I should see. Like rabbits coming out of their burrows after the gunner has passed on, the non-churchgoing folk began to appear. I saw young Daniel Dray and young Tom Clemmer go off with a bag of ferrets and their faithful terriers at their heels. Dewie Artlett arrived at the well-head—the traditional meeting-place for Windlecombe lovers—and stood waiting there with a big nosegay of primroses in his hand and another in his cap. He was joined a moment later by one of the girls from the farm, and off they went together for a morning’s sweethearting in the lanes. At the far end of the green, the inn-door came clattering open, and that genial reprobate, the inn-keeper, appeared in his shirt-sleeves, blinking up at the sky as though but lately out of his bed. Other doors here and there were thrust back, each giving egress to some happy loiterer in his Sunday best. Within five minutes, almost every garden-gate had a pair of brown arms comfortably resting on it, and voices began to pass the time of day to and fro in the whole sunny length of the street. By easy stages, stopping for a word here and there by an open door, or a chat with some old acquaintance sunning himself amidst his cabbages, I got to the foot of the hill and so to the river. The ferryman sat in his boat, but as he returned me for my greeting only a stare and a scarce-perceptible shake of the head, I knew that our common enemy was in ambush close by. I made off along the river-path, and turned into the woods.