Kathleen, Mabel, and Jimmy got hotter and hotter, and went more
and more slowly. They had almost reached that stage of
resentment and discomfort when one "wishes one hadn't come"
before they saw, below the edge of the beech-wood, the white
waved handkerchief of the bailiff.
That banner, eloquent of tea, shade, and being able to sit down, put
new heart into them. They mended their pace, and a final
desperate run landed them among the drifted coppery leaves and
bare grey and green roots of the beech-wood.
"Oh, glory!" said Jimmy, throwing himself down. "How do you
do?"
The bailiff looked very nice, the girls thought. He was not wearing
his velveteens, but a grey flannel suit that an Earl need not have
scorned; and his straw hat would have done no discredit to a Duke;
and a Prince could not have worn a prettier green tie. He
welcomed the children warmly. And there were two baskets
dumped heavy and promising among the beech-leaves.
He was a man of tact. The hot, instructive tour of the stone
antediluvians, which had loomed with ever-lessening charm before
the children, was not even mentioned.
"You must be desert-dry," he said, "and you'll be hungry, too, when
you've done being thirsty. I put on the kettle as soon as I discerned
the form of my fair romancer in the extreme offing."
The kettle introduced itself with puffings and bubblings from the
hollow between two grey roots where it sat on a spirit-lamp.
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