“Mebbe—­mebbe!” and Bainton twirled his cap round and round dubiously—­“But Miss Vancourt—–­”

“Miss Vancourt ain’t been to church once till now,”—­said Adam,—­ “An’ she’s only comin’ now to show it to her friends.  I doesn’t want to think ‘ard of her, for she’s a sweet-looking little lady an’ a kind one—­an’ my Ipsie just worships ‘er,—­an’ what my baby likes I’m bound to like too—­but I do ’ope she ain’t a ‘eathen, an’ that once comin’ to church means comin’ again, an’ reg’lar ever arterwards.  Anyway, it’s for you an’ me, Tummas, to leave Passon to the Lord an’ the fiery tongues,—­we ain’t no call to interfere with ‘im by tellin’ ‘im who’s comin’ to church an’ who ain’t.  Anyone’s free to enter the ‘ouse o’ God, rich or poor, an ’tain’t a world’s wonder if strangers worships at the Saint’s Rest as well as our own folk.”

Here the bells began to ring in perfect unison, with regular rhythm and sweet concord.

“I must go,”—­continued Adam—­“I ain’t done fixin’ the chairs yet, an’ it’s a quarter to eleven.  We’ll be ’avin ’em all ’ere d’rectly.”

He hurried into the church again just as Miss Eden and her boy-and-girl ‘choir’ entered the churchyard, and Bainton seeing them, and also perceiving in the near distance the slow halting figure of Josey Letherbarrow, who made it a point never to be a minute late for divine service, rightly concluded that there was no time now, even if he were disposed to such a course, to ‘warn Passon’ that he would have to preach to ‘fashionable folks’ that morning.

“Mebbe Adam’s right,” he reflected—­“An’ yet it do worry me a bit to think of ‘im comin’ out of ‘is garden innercent like an’ not knowin’ what’s a-waitin’ for ’im.  For he’s been rare quiet lately—­seems as if he was studyin’ an’ prayin’ from mornin’ to night, an’ he ain’t bin nowhere,—­an’ no one’s bin to see ’im, ’cept that scarecrow-lookin’ chap, Adderley, which he stayed a ‘ole arternoon, jabberin’ an’ readin’ to ‘im.  An’ what’s mighty queer to me is that he ain’t bin fidgettin’ over ’is garden like he used to.  He don’t seem to care no more whether the flowers blooms or doesn’t.  Them phloxes up against the west wall now—­a finer show I never seen—­an’ as for the lilum candidum, they’re a perfect picter.  But he don’t notice ’em much, an’ he’s not so keen on his water-lilies as I thought he would be, for they’re promisin’ better this year than they’ve ever done before, an’ the buds all a-floatin’ up on top o’ the river just lovely.  An’ as for vegetables—­Lord!—­he don’t seem to know whether ’tis beans or peas he ‘as—­there’s a kind o’ sap gone out o’ the garden this summer, for all that it’s so fine an’ flourishin’.  There’s a missin’ o’ somethin’ somewheres!”

His meditations were put to an end by the continuous arrival of all the villagers coming to church;—­by twos and threes, and then by half dozens and dozens, they filed in through the churchyard, exchanging brief neighbourly greetings with one another as they passed quietly into the sacred edifice, where the soft strains of the organ now began to mingle with the outside chiming of the bells.  Bainton still lingered near the porch, moved by a pardonable curiosity.  He was anxious to see the first glimpse of the people who were staying at the Manor, but as yet there was no sign of any one of them, though the time wanted only five minutes to eleven.