"That's enough. I'm stayin' in this neighbour'ood, and if I wasn't to call on the nobs they might be 'urt in their private feelin's. Glad to see yer lookin' so merry an' bright. Mornin'." And cap in hand, Bindle made an elaborate bow and passed on his way, leaving the buxom Mrs. Grinder wreathed in smiles.
Half an hour later he walked down the drive of The Towers, the residence of Sir Charles Custance, J.P., a sovereign richer than when he entered.
At the gates of The Towers he paused. Coming towards him was a dog-cart, driven by a small, fierce-looking little man. It was Mr. Roger Greenhales, who farmed as a hobby, at a considerable yearly loss, to prove that the outcry against the unprofitableness of English land-culture was ridiculous.
Bindle spoke to Mr. Greenhales, and in ten minutes received five shillings. He then proceeded to Holmleigh, where he found his foreman, and also that he had extended his dinner hour into two.
"It's a national affair, I tell you, Wrannock!"
Sir Charles Custance, J.P., leaned back in his library chair, and surveyed the impassive features of Sergeant Wrannock, as if searching for some contradiction; but Sergeant Wrannock of the Suffolk County Constabulary merely shuffled his feet and said:
"I'll call at the house this afternoon, and see if there's anything to be discovered. I'll go now; damme, if I don't. We'll both go."
Sir Charles jumped up forthwith. He was a short, stout man, with bushy, magisterial eyebrows, a red complexion, a bald head, a monocle, and a fierce don't-argue-with-me-sir manner.
He was a man who had but one topic of conversation--the coming German invasion. It would not be his fault if the Germans found Little Compton unprepared. He had pointed out that, being an East Coast village, it lay in the very centre of the battle-ground. At first Little Compton had felt uncomfortable; but later it had apparently become reconciled to its fate. It did nothing.
No village in England knew better what invasion would mean. Sir Charles had drawn a vivid picture of what would be the fate of the women of Little Compton unless their men-folk repelled the invaders, with the result that the Dorcas Society, with the full approval of the vicar, wrote to Sir Charles protesting against such things being said on a public platform.