Mockery Gap by T. F. Powys Page B

modest—Rebecca—walked from the farm with a milk-jug in her hand, stepping in the same path by which Mr. Pattimore had arrived, and going towards the vicarage with the evening supply of milk.
    A moment later Mary Gulliver, with the hay-knife that she had borrowed from the farm, climbed the stile and disappeared into the lane that led to her home. Mr. Pattimore looked away from her and towards the wood. Dinah was there, walking gladly in under the dark trees and carrying the bag that she usually brought for stick gathering.
    Mr. Pattimore peeped into the window from whence the voices had issued.
    The room was empty.
    Again Mr. Pattimore raised his eyes and looked at the sea and at the wood. Some one followed Dinah in under the trees. This was Simon, the pet god of the Mockery girls.
    Mr. Pattimore returned home sadly; he wished to ask Dean Ashbourne a question too.

Chapter 13
M ISS P INK FEARS THAT S OME THING IS C OMING
    N O ONE in Mockery, if we except Mr. Pattimore, was more anxious than Miss Pink to see the new fisherman.
    She told her brother that she hoped the fisherman would drive away from that part of the coast the horrid beast that Mr. Tarr had spoken of.
    ‘The children,’ she said, ‘call the fisherman the Nellie-bird, but that is only another name for the beast, who I hope will never come to me.’
    ‘To-day is Friday,’ said Miss Pink, when she had put the plates away after their midday meal; ‘and as it’s Mrs. Pattimore’s sewing-party , I’m sure that something will happen.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Miss Pink; ‘it was on one of those days that I slipped down and hurt my nose. And on the other day, when Mr. Pattimore read a story called “The Modest Lovers,” Mr. James Tarr came to the village and told us all about the horrible thing.’
    Before she went out, Miss Pink peeped into the tiny office where Mr. Pink spent so much of his time.
    ‘The estate accounts,’ said Miss Pink, opening the door a very little, though enough for her small head, ‘mustn’t be interrupted.’
    Mr. Pink was standing at his desk and writing. He looked as if the writing, or whatever it was he was at work upon, had carried him a very long way off from this base world.
    ‘It’s an agreement,’ said Mr. Pink, hastily putting a large new sheet of blotting-paper over his work; ‘it’s the agreement between Mrs. Moggs and Mr. Roddy concerning the new lease upon her cottage. She is to have it for ever, if only—and I was just putting in the clause—she will consent to go down and look at the sea.’
    ‘She will never do that,’ said Miss Pink.
    ‘Then we’re all of us damned,’ said the agent decidedly.
    Miss Pink shivered. ‘I hope that’s not what’s going to happen to-day,’ she thought as she closed the door.
    Miss Pink opened it again. ‘If he comes,’ she said, ‘the front room’s ready.’
    ‘Yes, yes,’ said Mr. Pink, ‘I know.’
    He did know, for this front room was Miss Pink’s especial care. It was always dusted and the lamp trimmed and lit of an evening. Nothing was ever seen out of place in Miss Pink’s front room. Even Mr. Caddy told his ducks about it all, and how Mr. Pink and she would sit in their kitchen upon a winter evening with only one candle burning, while the front room would be always lit up with a bright and well-trimmed lamp.
    But only Miss Pink knew who was expected.
    Mrs. Cheney and Mrs. Topple were already settled in chairs in the vicarage dining-room when Miss Pink was shown in by Rebecca Pring, who was herself to sit there soon as one of the party.
    Mrs. Topple was already busy; she was embroidering, with green silk, clover leaves at each corner of a tablecloth. And the leaves were each four upon one stalk. Mrs. Topple didn’t appear to take any notice of the other ladies who were in the room; and even when Miss Pink remarked to Mrs. Cheney that she believed something was going to happen, Mrs. Topple went on sewing and heeded nothing but her longed-for leaves.
    Mrs.