That is why I dislike Minnie
so." He rose, and stretched himself. "Heigho! I suppose it's about
time we detailed patrols and working parties for to-night. What a
lovely sky! A truly peaceful atmosphere--what? It gives one a sort of
Sunday-evening feeling, somehow."
"May I suggest an explanation?" said Wagstaffe.
"By all means."
"It _is_ Sunday evening!"
Captain Blaikie whistled gently, and said--
"By Jove, so it is." Then, after a pause: "This time last Sunday--"
Last Sunday had been an off-day--a day of cloudless summer beauty.
Tired men had slept; tidy men had washed their clothes; restless men
had wandered at ease about the countryside, careless of the guns which
grumbled everlastingly a few miles away. There had been impromptu
Church Parades for each denomination, in the corner of a wood which
was part of the demesne of a shell-torn chateau.
It is a sadly transformed wood. The open space before the chateau,
once a smooth expanse of tennis-lawn, is now a dusty picketing-ground
for transport mules, destitute of a single blade of grass. The
ornamental lake is full of broken bottles and empty jam-tins. The
pagoda-like summer-house, so inevitable to French chateau gardens, is
a quartermaster's store. Half the trees have been cut down for fuel.
Still, the July sun streams very pleasantly through the remainder, and
the Psalms of David float up from beneath their shade quite as sweetly
as they usually do from the neighbourhood of the precentor's desk in
the kirk at home--perhaps sweeter.
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