His whispering voice sank until Mr. Polly could hear only the dim fragments of sentences. "Orrible things to you--'orrible things.... Kick yer ugly.... Cut yer--liver out... spread it all about, I will.... Outing doos. See? I don't care a dead rat one way or the uvver." And with a curious twisting gesture of the arm Uncle Jim receded until his face was a still, dim thing that watched, and the black shadows of the hedge seemed to have swallowed up his body altogether. VII Next morning about half-past ten Mr. Polly found himself seated under a clump of fir trees by the roadside and about three miles and a half from the Potwell Inn. He was by no means sure whether he was taking a walk to clear his mind or leaving that threat-marred Paradise for good and all. His reason pointed a lean, unhesitating finger along the latter course. For after all, the thing was not _his_ quarrel. That agreeable plump woman, agreeable, motherly, comfortable as she might be, wasn't his affair; that child with the mop of black hair who combined so magically the charm of mouse and butterfly and flitting bird, who was daintier than a flower and softer than a peach, was no concern of his. Good heavens! what were they to him? Nothing!... Uncle Jim, of course, _had_ a claim, a sort of claim. If it came to duty and chucking up this attractive, indolent, observant, humorous, tramping life, there were those who had a right to him, a legitimate right, a prior claim on his protection and chivalry. Why not listen to the call of duty and go back to Miriam now?... He had had a very agreeable holiday.... And while Mr. Polly sat thinking these things as well as he could, he knew that if only he dared to look up the heavens had opened and the clear judgment on his case was written across the sky. He knew--he knew now as much as a man can know of life. He knew he had to fight or perish. Life had never been so clear to him before. It had always been a confused, entertaining spectacle, he had responded to this impulse and that, seeking agreeable and entertaining things, evading difficult and painful things. Such is the way of those who grow up to a life that has neither danger nor honour in its texture. He had been muddled and wrapped about and entangled like a creature born in the jungle who has never seen sea or sky. Now he had come out of it suddenly into a great exposed place. It was as if God and Heaven waited over him and all the earth was expectation. "Not my business," said Mr. Polly, speaking aloud. "Where the devil do _I_ come in?" And again, with something between a whine and a snarl in his voice, "not my blasted business!"