* * * * *

In the morning they read the date cut in the wall above the porch:  1665.

The house was old and bent and grey.  Its windows were narrow slits in the stone mullions.  It crouched under the dipping boughs of the ash-tree that sheltered it.  Inside there was just room for Veronica to stand up.  Nicholas had to stoop or knock his head against the beams.  It had only four rooms, two for Nicholas and Veronica, and two for Jean and Suzanne.  And it was rather dark.

But it pleased them.  They said it was their apple-tree-house grown up because they were grown up, and keeping strict proportions.  You had to crawl into it, and you were only really comfortable sitting or lying down.  So they sat outside it, watching old Suzanne through the window as she moved about the house place, cooking Belgian food for them, and old Jean as he worked in the garden.

Veronica loved Jean and Suzanne.  She had found out all about them the first morning.

“Only think, Nicky.  They’re from Termonde, and their house was burnt behind them as they left it.  They saw horrors, and their son was killed in the War.

“Yet they’re happy and at peace.  Almost as if they’d forgotten.  He’ll plant flowers in his garden.”

“They’re old, Ronny.  And perhaps they were tired already when it happened.”

“Yes, that must be it.  They’re old and tired.”

* * * * *

And now it was the last adventure of their last day.  They were walking on the slope of Renton Moor that looks over Rathdale towards Greffington Edge.  The light from the west poured itself in vivid green down the valley below them, broke itself into purple on Karva Hill to the north above Morfe, and was beaten back in subtle blue and violet from the stone rampart of the Edge.

Nicholas had been developing, in fancy, the strategic resources of the country.  Guns on Renton Moor, guns along Greffington Edge, on Sarrack Moor.  The raking lines of the hills were straight as if they had been measured with a ruler and then planed.

“Ronny,” he said at last, “we’ve licked ’em in the first round, you and I. The beastly Boche can’t do us out of these three days.”

“No.  We’ve been absolutely happy.  And we’ll never forget it.  Never.”

“Perhaps it was a bit rough on Dad and Mummy, our carting ourselves up here, away from them.  But, you see, they don’t really mind.  They’re feeling about it now just as we feel about it.  I knew they would.”

There had been a letter from Frances saying she was glad they’d gone.  She was so happy thinking how happy they were.

“They’re angels, Nicky.”

“Aren’t they?  Simply angels.  That’s the rotten part of it.  I wish—­

“I wish I could tell them what I think of them.  But you can’t, somehow.  It sticks in your throat, that sort of thing.”

“You needn’t,” she said; “they know all right.”