’Well, not when I’m going over the parapet to attack the Boches.  Honestly, one thinks of nothing then but how one can get one’s men across.  But you won’t come off badly, my little Nell—­for thoughts—­night or day.  And you mustn’t think of us too sentimentally.  It’s quite true that men write wonderful letters—­and wonderful verse too—­men of all ranks—­things you’d never dream they could write.  I’ve got a little pocket-book full that I’ve collected.  I’ve left it in London, but I’ll show you some day.  But bless you, nobody talks about their feelings at the front.  We’re a pretty slangy lot in the trenches, and when we’re in billets, we read novels and rag each other—­and sleep—­my word, we do sleep!’

He rolled on his back, and drew his hat over his eyes a moment, for even in the fresh mountain air the June sun was fierce.  Nelly sat still, watching him, as he had watched her—­all the young strength and comeliness of the man to whom she had given herself.

And as she did so there came swooping down upon her, like the blinding wings of a Fury, the remembrance of a battle picture she had seen that morning:  a bursting shell—­limp figures on the ground.  Oh not George—­not George—­never!  The agony ran through her, and her fingers gripped the turf beside her.  Then it passed, and she was silently proud that she had been able to hide it.  But it had left her pale and restless.  She sprang up, and they went along the high path leading to Grasmere and Langdale.

Presently at the top of the little neck which separates Rydal from Grasmere they came upon an odd cavalcade.  In front walked an elderly lady, with a huge open bag slung round her, in which she carried an amazing load of the sphagnum moss that English and Scotch women were gathering at that moment all over the English and Scotch mountains for the surgical purposes of the war.  Behind her came a pony, with a boy.  The pony was laden with the same moss, so was the boy.  The lady’s face was purple with exertion, and in her best days she could never have been other than plain; her figure was shapeless.  She stopped the pony as she neared the Sarratts, and addressed them—­panting.

’I beg your pardon!—­but have you by chance seen another lady carrying a bag like mine?  I brought a friend with me to help gather this stuff—­but we seem to have missed each other on the top of Silver How—­and I can’t imagine what’s happened to her.’

The voice was exceedingly musical and refined—­but there was a touch of power in it—­a curious note of authority.  She stood, recovering breath and looking at the young people with clear and penetrating eyes, suddenly observant.

The Sarratts could only say that they had not come across any other moss-gatherer on the road.

The strange lady sighed—­but with a half humorous, half philosophical lifting of the eyebrows.

’It was very stupid of me to miss her—­but you really can’t come to grief on these fells in broad daylight.  However, if you do meet her—­a lady with a sailor hat, and a blue jersey—­will you tell her that I’ve gone on to Ambleside?’