VC -- A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea | Page 2

to the plunging
rain, and paused to gather breath before he assaulted the last slope of

the hill. He had lost his hat, and the water trickled out of his hair in
rivulets.
'I've seen worse weather than any they can brew in the neighbourhood
of Beacon Hargate,' he panted to himself, 'but it's one thing to have a
good tight craft under your feet, and it's another to be bogged in the
dark, over half a mile of rotten plough-land. All right, my lads, you
haven't got Jack Jervase under yet. Here goes.'
With this he faced the hill and the rain again, and made his difficult and
slippery way upward, impeded by his clinging clothes, and snorting
like a grampus. Right at the crown of the hill, most fortunately for the
wayfarer, there was a thick coppice of stunted trees, which afforded
refuge from the gale and shelter from the rain. He was quite blown by
the time he reached it, and he clutched at the nearest sapling as a
drowning man clutches at a spar. He stood there perforce for a full
minute, panting hard. Then he shook his head doggedly, and muttered a
second time:
'All right, my lads. You haven't got Jack Jervase yet.'
And then, helping himself along from hand to hand, he skirted the
coppice, until he came to the unsheltered brow of the hill. It was well
for him then that he had something to hold on by. Even as it was, he
was clean lifted from his feet, and it was only by a prodigious effort
that he saved himself from being blown away like a leaf. But having
once struggled past the actual summit, he had escaped that danger, and
a minute later, through howling-wind and scourging rain, the fire-lit
windows of the house were beaming 'home!' upon him. Another instant
and his feet were on the firm gravel, and he went scudding before the
wind until he had gained the corner of the house. Here, feeling his
troubles over, he paused once more for breath, and took a dripping way
towards the rear of the building.
He stayed for an instant to glance in at an old-fashioned broad
mullioned window. He looked into a room where a jolly coal fire was
burning in the grate, and blazing up the chimney. About it half-a-dozen
people sat comfortably grouped, and there was a big brown steaming

jug upon the wooden table in the centre of the room, which was paved
with the large square tiles locally called 'quarries.' One of the group
about the fire turned to this jug and poured out from it a
generous-looking stream of dark brown liquid into a number of mugs
of the old Staffordshire ware, which at that time of day was common in
rustic households, though it seems now to have vanished from all
places but the shelves of the collector. The onlooker shivered and spoke
under his breath.
'You're making pretty free with old Jack's old October inside there, ain't
you? Pretty fine old crowd to come home to!--guzzling at my expense.
I'll sort ye.'
A moment later he was in the room, but short as the interval was
between the close of his speech and his appearance before the group
about the fire, his temper had apparently changed, for he broke out in a
cheery voice:
'Hilloa, my lads! I reckon one or two of you are weatherbound. Well,
you've found a snug harbour here, and you're welcome to it. Mary,' he
went on, addressing a thick-set woman of middle age, who had risen at
his entrance, and stood before him with an embarrassed aspect, 'don't
tell the missus that I'm at home, but go upstairs and lay out dry things
for me. I'm wet through to the marrow. I'll have a drop of that myself,'
he said, laying a hand on one of the mugs and nodding round the little
circle, with a beaming face.
One of the men noisily shifted his chair to make room for him, and the
master of the house approached the fire, and, turning his back to it,
began to steam like a whole washing day.
He sipped comfortably at the creaming contents of the mug, and fairly
beamed upon his guests.
'You chaps,' he said, 'will have to wake up by and by. I hope there isn't
one of you that hasn't got the spirit to go out and fight for his Queen
and country?'

'There ain't a-going to be no fightin', Mr. Jervase,' said one of the men
sheepishly.
'Don't you make any mistake about that, my lad,' said Mr. Jervase. 'I've
got a bit of news for you as will set old England in a blaze within
another four-and-twenty hours. And I suppose I'm the only