The funny little things had halted simultaneously at the foot of the jutting cliff which hid the village and the station from the eyes of William and Griselda. As Griselda had said, in another moment they would have been round it and out of sight, and fifty more yards or so beyond the bend would have brought them to the outskirts of the village. Instead, they halted and drew together for an instant; then one funny little thing, detaching himself from the group, scampered backwards by the road he had come, and continued scampering till he rounded the eastward bluff. His insects of companions remained grouped where he had left them, their horses shifting backwards and forwards on the white surface of the road. "They’re waiting for him to come back," Griselda concluded idly, "I expect they’ve forgotten something." What they had forgotten proved to be a column of horsemen curving in swift and orderly fashion round the foot of the eastward bluff. It came on, a supple and decorative line, bending with the bend and straightening as the valley straightened. "Soldiers," said William, with the orthodox accent of contempt—following with a pleasure he would not for worlds have admitted the sinuous windings of the troop. There is in the orderly movement of men an attraction which few can resist; it appealed even to his elementary sense of the rhythmic, and he, like Griselda, bent forward to watch and to listen to the distant clatter of hoofs echoed back from the walls of the valley. As the horsemen swung out of sight round the westward bluff and the clatter of hoof-beats deadened, he held up a finger, and Griselda asked, "What is it?" "Guns," he said. "Cannon—don’t you hear them?" She did; a soft, not unpleasing thud, repeated again and again, and coming down the breeze from the northward. "It must be manoeuvres," he explained. "That’s what those soldiers are doing. I expect it’s what they call the autumn manoeuvres." "Playing at murder," Griselda commented, producing the orthodox sigh. She had heard the phrase used by a pacifist orator in the Park and considered it apt and telling. "What a waste of time—and what a brutalizing influence on the soldiers themselves! Ah, if only women had a say in national affairs!" ... and she made the customary glib oration on her loved and familiar text. Before it was quite finished, William held up his finger again—needlessly, for Griselda had stopped short on her own initiative. This time it was a crackle of sharp little shots, not far away and softened like the sound of the heavier guns, but comparatively close at hand and, if their ears did not deceive them, just beyond the westward bluff. "They’re pretending to fight in the village," Griselda said. "How silly! Firing off guns and making believe to shoot people."