"It's the profound simplicity of life that baffles us," he said. "It's too simple for us to understand. Our brains aren't big enough--as yet." He was becoming strangely excited. Ernie thought he understood now the source of that exalted look of his father's. "But we shall some day. Already there has been One Man who did. Think of it! We crucified Him for it of course. We had to. He was climbing too far a-head: so we plucked him back to earth. You mustn't go too far ahead of the Herd. They won't stand it. But He knew: He trusted It: He could float in It--like that kittiwake, ascending into heaven, descending into hell, at will." He lay back on the turf, exhausted, his hat over his eyes, his hands on the turf beside him. "Ernie." "Yes, dad." "Have you felt the Tide?" "I think so." The old man put his hand upon his son's. "Let it come, Boy-lad," he said. "Trust it to do the work. All our mistakes are due to the same thing." "What's that?" asked Ernie. "Trying to interfere," answered the other. "Follow!--that's our human part." That evening, after supper, before he left, Ernie asked his mother shyly for some roses. She took him out into the front-garden, tiny as it was trim, and gave him of her best. Afterwards, as he walked away, she stood at the little gate and watched him, a beautiful look in her eyes. Then she wiped her shoes very carefully, and turned into the house. The study-door was open, and she peeped in. Her husband was sitting as always in the bow, looking out towards the trees stirring in the Rectory garden. Anne stared at him. "Has he said anything to you?" she asked at last in the voice that grew always more grumbling and ungracious with the years. "Not yet," her husband answered. "Well, it's about time," Anne grumbled. "Only I wish I'd had the choosing of her." "Ernie'll choose all right," Edward answered in the peculiar crisp way he sometimes now adopted. "You needn't worry about him." Whether there was a faint emphasis on the pronoun or not, Anne answered with asperity, "And you needn't worry about Alf for that matter. He's far too set on himself to find room for a wife." Ernie was at Billing's Corner half an hour before the Lewes char-a-banc was due, hanging about at the top of the rise, looking along the white road that runs past Moot Farm under the long swell of the escorting hills. It was a perfect evening of late May. The sun had already sunk in darkened majesty against the West when the familiar cloud of dust betokened the approach of the four-horse team. Ruth was sitting on the box beside the driver. Ernie recognized her from afar by the splotch of colour made by her hat, and was filled with an almost overpowering content. The horses sprang the rise at a canter, the conductor blowing a flourish on his horn. The girl's hand was to her hat, and her head bowed to the wind. The char-a-banc drew up with a swagger in the open space before the _Billing Arms_.