And they can be made more readily out of doors; for—­supposing it is fine—­the fresh air calls you to be doing something, and the sight of the newly marked tennis lawn fills you with thoughts of revenge for your accidental defeat the evening before.  But indoors it is so easy to drop into a sofa after breakfast, and, once there with all the papers, to be disinclined to leave it till lunch-time.  A man or woman as lazy as this must not be rushed.  Say to such a one, “Come and play,” and the invitation will be declined.  Say, “Come and look at the pond,” and the worst sluggard will not refuse such gentle exercise.  And once he is out he is out.

All this for those delightful summer days when there are fine intervals; but consider the advantages of the pond when the rain streams down in torrents from morning till night.  How tired we get of being indoors on these days, even with the best of books, the pleasantest of companions, the easiest of billiard tables.  Yet if our hostess were to see us marching out with an umbrella, how odd she would think us.  “Where are you off to?” she would ask, and we could only answer lamely, “Er—­I was just going to—­ er—­walk about a bit.”  But now we tell her brightly, “I’m going to see the pond.  It must be nearly full.  Won’t you come too?” And with any luck she comes.  And you know, it even reconciles us a little to these streaming days to reflect that it all goes to fill the pond.  For there is ever before our minds that great moment in the future when the pond is at last full.  What will happen then?  Aldenham may know, but we his guests do not.  Some think there will be merely a flood over the surrounding paths and the kitchen garden, but for myself I believe that we are promised something much bigger than that.  A man with such a broad and friendly outlook towards rain-gauges will be sure to arrange something striking when the great moment arrives.  Some sort of fete will help to celebrate it, I have no doubt; with an open-air play, tank drama, or what not.  At any rate we have every hope that he will empty the pond as speedily as possible so that we may watch it fill again.

I must say that he has been a little lucky in his choice of a year for inaugurating the pond.  But, all the same, there are now 45 in. of rain in it, 45 in. of rain have fallen in the last three weeks, and I think that something ought to be done about it.

A Seventeenth-Century Story

There is a story in every name in that first column of The Times--Births, Marriages, and Deaths—­down which we glance each morning, but, unless the name is known to us, we do not bother about the stories of other people.  They are those not very interesting people, our contemporaries.  But in a country churchyard a name on an old tombstone will set us wondering a little.  What sort of life came to an end there a hundred years ago?

In the parish register we shall find the whole history of them; when they were born, when they were married, how many children they had, when they died—­a skeleton of their lives which we can clothe with our fancies and make living again.  Simple lives, we make them, in that pleasant countryside; “Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath”; that is all.  Simple work, simple pleasures, and a simple death.