While Nicky-Nan—­who, as we have said, had a fondness for children—­ stood and eyed the weather with approval, Mrs Penhaligon came bustling out, with her bonnet on.

“Lord sakes!” she exclaimed.  “Be that the drum already?  What a whirl one does live in!—­and if there’s one thing I hate more’n another, ’tis to be fussed.”

“What about the children, ma’am?”

“The children? . . .  Gone on this half-hour, I should hope.  ’Beida’s a good gel enough, when once ye’ve coaxed her into her best things.  It sobers her you can’t think.  She’ll look after ’Biades an’ see that he don’t put ‘Lead us, Heavenly Father, lead us’ into his mouth, though ’tis where he puts most things.”

“But you’re goin’ to the Treat yourself, ma’am?” Nicky-Nan suggested.

“What, in this rig-out?  Catch me!” answered Mrs Penhaligon, not with literal intention but idiomatically.  “No, I’m but goin’ up to see ’em off decent.  But I wonder at you liggin’ behind, when ’tis the only Bank Holiday randivoo this side o’ Troy. . . .”

“‘Tidn’ for want o’ will,” Nicky-Nan answered ruefully and truthfully, with a downward glance, which reminded Mrs Penhaligon to be remorseful.

“Eh, but I forgot . . . and you with that leg on your mind!  But you’ll forgive a body as has been these two days in a stirabout.  And if you’re fittin’ to take a stroll before I get back, maybe you’ll not forget to lock the house up.”

Nicky-Nan promised. (He and the Penhaligons had separate keys of the main door.) He watched the good woman as she hurried on her way, tying her bonnet-strings as she went.

It occurred to him that, leg or no leg, he felt lonely, and would be all the better for a stroll.  So, having fetched his stick and locked the house-door behind him, he dandered down towards the Quay.  The street was empty, uncannily silent.  “It’s queer now,” thought Nicky-Nan, “what a difference childern make to a town, an’ you never noticin’ it till they’re gone.”  All the children had departed—­the happy little Wesleyans to climb on board the waggons, the small Church of England minority to watch them, and solace their envy with expectation of their own Treat, a more select one, promised for this-day-fortnight.  Then would be their turn, and some people would live to be sorry that they went to Chapel.  But a fortnight is a long time, and weather in the West is notoriously uncertain.  Of course you cannot eat your cake and have it:  but Mrs Penhaligon arrived just in time to stop a fight between ’Bert and Matthey Matthew’s ugly boy, who sang in the Church choir, and hoped it would rain. (Odium theologicum.)

The most of the mothers had departed also, either to “assist” at the Treat or to watch the embarkation:  while those of the men whom the War had not claimed had tramped it over to Troy, which six weeks ago—­and long before the idea of a European War had occurred to any one—­had advertised a small regatta for Bank Holiday, with an afternoon’s horse-racing.