“Mary, the master’s hat.  Mary, Mary!  Master wants his hat.”

Then she appeared at the foot of the stairs, with an anxious excited face and speaking breathlessly.

“Mary can’t leave th’ Yorkshire pudden, sir; but she says she saw Mrs. Dale with th’ hat in her hand after you wore it on Wednesday to Manninglea.”

“Yes, but where is it now, Norah?”

“I do think Mrs. Dale must have put it in the cupboard under the stairs to get it safe out of Billy’s way.”

And sure enough there the hat was.  Both children pressed beside Norah to peep in with her when she opened the cupboard door.  This hall cupboard was the most sacred and awe-inspiring receptacle in the whole house, because here were kept Dale’s fireman’s outfit always ready and handy to be snatched out at a moment’s notice.  Rachel gazed delightedly at the blue coat hanging extended, with the webbed steel on the shoulder-straps, at the helmet above, the great boots beneath, and the shining ax that dangled near an empty sleeve; but the sight was almost too tremendous for Billy.  His lively young imagination could too readily inflate this shell of apparel with ogreish flesh and bone waiting to pounce on small intruders, and he clung rather timorously to Norah’s skirt.

“Daddy,” said Rachel, “I wis’ you’d wear your helmet to-day.”

“Oh, no, lassie, that wouldn’t be seemly.  This is more the thing for Sunday.  Thank you, Norah.”  And having taken the silk hat, he laid his hand lightly on Norah’s wavy black hair, and spoke to her very kindly.  “Nothing like thought, Norah.  I believe you’ve got a good little thinking-box under all this pretty hair, and you can’t use it too much, my dear—­specially so long as you’re thinking about others.”

Norah, with her blue eyes fixed on the venerated master’s face, seemed to tremble joyously under the caress and the compliment.  She and the children came out into the front garden and stood at the gate to watch Dale march away down the white road.  He looked grandly stiff, black and large, in his ceremonious costume—­a daddy and a master to be proud of.

He went only half-way to Rodchurch, and then sitting on a gate opposite the Baptist chapel indulged himself with another pipe.  He made his halt here because several times when he had gone farther he had found Mavis accompanied by old Rodchurch acquaintances who had volunteered to escort her for a portion of the homeward journey, and he felt no inclination for this sort of chance society.

Not a human being, not even the smallest sign of a man’s habitation, was in sight; not a movement of bird or beast could be perceived in the stretching expanse of flat fields, across which huge cloud shadows passed slowly; the broad white road on either hand seemed to lead from nowhere to nowhere, and Dale, meditatively puffing out his tobacco smoke and watching it rise and vanish, had that sense of deep and almost