So the family, which was ready in its best Sunday garments, sallied forth.  Ashbourne Church stood a whole mile away from the village, in a lonely spot with only a couple of cottages near it.  The Woodwards took a short cut across the common from Highfield, so that they did not pass any houses or meet any neighbors by the way.  They arrived at the church to find the door locked, and the Vicar and his family standing in consternation outside.  Mr. James hailed them with relief.

“So it is Sunday!” he exclaimed.  “I began to think we must have mistaken the day!  I can’t understand what’s the matter.  Nobody’s here except ourselves.  What’s becomes of Stevens?”

It was certainly an unprecedented circumstance to find choir, congregation, organist, organ-blower, bell-ringer and verger all conspicuous by their absence.  Mr. James went to the cottages near to make inquiries as to the cause.  The first was locked up, but by knocking long and loudly at the door of the second, he at last succeeded in rousing Jacob Johnson, a deaf old man of eighty-three.

“Nobody come to church!” he repeated, when after some difficulty and much shouting the situation had been explained:  “Well, ’tain’t likely there should be!  I’m told there’s a German bomb there, one of the dangerous sort for going off.  Some men brought it yesterday in a motor car.  Spies of the Kaiser, they were.  It may explode any minute, they say, and wreck the church and everything near.  The Greenwoods next door locked up the house, and went to their aunt’s in the village.  My daughter came over here asking me to go home with her, but I said I’d stay and risk it.  At eighty-three one doesn’t care to move!”

“Where is this bomb?” asked Mr. James.

“In a pew nigh the old monument, so I’m told.”  At this juncture Jack Cassidy, who when the church was first found to be locked had volunteered to run back to the Vicarage and fetch the Vicar’s own key, now arrived after a record sprint.

“Give me a bucket of water, and I’ll go and investigate,” said Mr. James.

He came out of the church in the course of a few minutes, holding in his hand—­the old helmet!

“This is the nearest approach to a bomb of any description that I’ve been able to discover,” he announced.  “I’m going to carry it to the village to convince the wiseacres there.  Perhaps Stevens will pluck up courage to ring the bell for afternoon service.  If not, I’ll ring it myself.”

Winona’s share in the business might have remained concealed but for the indiscretion of Mamie, who by an incautious remark gave the show away entirely.

“You little silly!” scolded Winona afterwards.  “What possessed you to go and say anything at all?  Mr. James will never forgive me!  I could see it in his eye.  And Mrs. James was ice itself!  I’ve never felt so horrible in all my life.  If you’d only had the sense to keep mum, they might never have found out.  You kids are the most frightful nuisance!  If I’d had my choice given me when I was born, I wouldn’t have been an eldest sister.”