But he knew it was all nothing compared with the cow.

When he had to go the farmer walked with him as far as the gate. He said something which George didn’t understand. Then he touched the butt of the rifle, and George knew at once. They went to the barn, where the cow was lowing. She was down on her haunches now. George unslung his rifle and handed it to the farmer. He shouldn’t have done that really, a soldier should never part with his rifle, but it seemed important that the farmer should do the thing himself.

It reminded him of his father shooting an old dog he was very fond of.

The farmer gave the rifle back and shrugged his shoulders; they shook hands again and they understood each other perfectly, they didn’t need any words.

That was three days ago, wrote George; but it still made him think. He wished he could write a proper letter to explain that Frenchmen weren’t Froggies but were just like people at home. But he couldn’t explain so he finished up in much the same strain as he had begun:

‘They are very good people,’ declared George. ‘Their cider is peart like ours. When we’ve got this lot finished we’ll go down to the local and I’ll tell you all about it. They have fine cows and they are just like us. It makes you think.’

‘The Pastoral Loves of Daphnis and Chloe’

When George came back from the war Susan invited him to spend a weekend with her parents. He put on his demob suit, which didn’t fit at all, and his demob tie which was wonderfully striped like a Neapolitan ice, and he succeeded in looking exactly what he wasn’t, the gooping village bumpkin dressed up for a trip to town. We never heard what happened during that weekend; but it was clear enough that everything had gone wrong. When it was over George wrapped the precious demob suit away in tissue paper and put on his old paratroop’s jacket again and went to work for William Hart. He lived at home with his parents and was able to save about two pounds a week out of his pay; and it was estimated that at this rate he would have saved two hundred pounds in two years’ time, with which in some mysterious way he would Better Himself and find favour in the eyes of Susan’s parents. But in practice the sum didn’t work out like that; for love makes nonsense of mathematics and George would have been a poor sort of lover if he hadn’t been moved from time to time by the glory and splendour of his state to buy some absurd and prodigal present for Susan or to squander his week’s savings recklessly on squiring all six of the Frolick Virgins to the Horse and Harrow and buying them gin. So it looked as if it might be ten years, rather than two, before George was able to afford to furnish a cottage let alone to Better Himself. Meanwhile the star-crossed pair continued to discover every imaginable delight in each other’s company and to say goodnight to each other in an atmosphere of considerable drama outside the land girls’ hostel every evening. Mr Chorlton, who liked to walk in the garden at twilight and wrap himself in his thoughts, observed sadly that it was extremely difficult to concentrate while what appeared to be a combination of Troilus and Cressida, Pyramus and Thisbe, and Romeo and Juliet, breathed eternal farewells just outside the gate.

Anon Mrs Merrythought, with much banging of bolts and clanking of chains, would indicate that she was about to lock up and Susan would scuttle inside. But the lovers’ parting was not for long; at seven o’clock next morning they would be reunited; for the land girls were hired out to various farmers in twos and threes and needless to say Susan generally contrived to be among those who worked for Mr Hart. And so together, like characters in some ancient pastoral, the lovers mowed and reaped, ploughed and planted, and even discovered a kind of bliss in sprout-picking when they did it side by side. They were accessories to the crime, if it was one, of growing linseed in Little Twittocks; for Susan had ploughed the field and George had sown the seed. As for old William, he was so crippled with rheumatism that he was only able to hobble as far as the gate and lean over it; but that was probably enough, for it was always said of him that he’d only got to look at something to make it grow.

The Wild Old Man

It is high time that I told you something of the history of this wild and strange old man, whose boisterous mischief, or prankishness as our people aptly described it, was notable even in crack-brained Brensham.

This mischief, in his youth and early middle age, had populated the village with numerous bastards, whom he cheerfully and shamelessly acknowledged; in later life it had manifested itself in the form of uproarious drunkenness and elaborate practical jokes. Impish even when he was sober, Mr Hart in drink had been liable to ring the church bells at midnight or call out the Fire Brigade to an imaginary fire; he had introduced a squealing pig into a choir practice and a donkey into the deliberations of the Parish Council; and he had defended himself against an angry policeman with the effective though double-edged weapon of a swarm of bees. But though his absurd pranks caused annoyance to their victims, everybody agreed that there was no real harm in him. ‘He wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ people said. The constable, smothered in blue-bag and smarting from a dozen bee-stings, might perhaps have contested this; but they meant that his broad buffooning had its roots in a sort of innocence, his sins were original sins, without any later admixture of vice. Even his occasional drunkenness had a childlike quality which robbed it of offence.