A little breeze stirred the willows. The turban on the ground flapped and fluttered like a winged bird. Then it opened suddenly and discovered a jagged flint, wrapped in its folds. Ruth took it out and tossed it into the stream. "It aren't pretty, I knaw," she said. "But life is life; and Alfs are Alfs; and you never knaw." He escorted her across the Brooks to the road, moving leisurely behind her in the dusk, his shoulder mumbling hers. On the bridge she said good-bye. He was outraged. "I'm going home with you!" he cried. "I'd liefer not, if you please, Ernie," she said, gently insistent. "Not through the village, Sadaday night and all." "Very well," he answered reluctantly. "To-morrow then. A bit afoor cock-crow." BOOK VIII TREASURE TROVE CHAPTER LV THE POOL Ernie was up and away early next morning. It was Sunday; and there was nobody about except the few hurrying to early service in the parish-church. Amongst these he noted Alf turning into the porch. At Billing's Corner he met the Archdeacon, who passed him with disapproving eye, and the sour remark, "You're off early, Caspar." "Yes, sir," brightly. "I'm away over the hill." "Ah," smirked the Archdeacon, "there are better ways of passing the Sabbath, I believe." "Yes, sir," answered Ernie. "You'll find Alf awaitin you inside. He's doin it for us both." The Archdeacon had never quite made up his mind whether Ernie was ingenuous or impertinent or both. But then he had never made up his mind about Ernie's father, though he had disliked his impalpable neighbour and feared him secretly for thirty years. Ernie now turned into Rectory Walk, and paused outside No. 60. The habits of the inmates he knew to a minute, and had timed himself accordingly. His mother would be in the kitchen, preparing breakfast in her blue wrapper, while his father would be dressing. Standing in the tiny square of garden among the tall tobacco plants, he tossed a cautious pebble through the upper window which was open. "Dad!" he called, low. The old man, spectacled, but collarless, in all the purity of a clean Sunday shirt, thrust out a touzled head. "Found her," whispered Ernie. His father nodded down benevolently. Then there sparkled in his eyes that remote and frosty twinkle which was the outward and visible sign of the change that had been wrought in him. "And finding's keeping," he said. In the glorious morning Ernie took the hill, marching through the gorse to the song of larks. On the one hand the Weald lay spread beneath him like a green lagoon, dimming to blue; and on the other the great waters rose up to meet and mingle with the greater sky. It was still early when he dropped down kestrel-haunted Wind-hover, over the corn-covered foothills, into the Brooks. A white hand-bridge on red girders crossed the stream just under the mound on which stood the short-backed cathedral church with its thick-set tower, half-hidden by ash and sycamore.