ide was a troublesome noise of night-jars and a distant roaring of
stags, black trees, blacknesses, the sky clear and remote with a great
company of stars.... The stars seemed attentive. They stirred and yet
were still. It was as if they were the eyes of watchers. He would go out
to them....

Very softly he went towards the passage door, and still more softly felt
his way across the landing and down the staircase. Once or twice he
paused to listen.

He let himself out with elaborate precautions....

Across the dark he went, and suddenly his boy was all about him,
playing, climbing the cedars, twisting miraculously about the lawn on a
bicycle, discoursing gravely upon his future, lying on the grass,
breathing very hard and drawing preposterous caricatures. Once again
they walked side by side up and down--it was athwart this very
spot--talking gravely but rather shyly....

And here they had stood a little awkwardly, before the boy went in to
say good-bye to his stepmother and go off with his father to the
station....

"I will work to-morrow again," whispered Mr. Britling, "but
to-night--to-night.... To-night is yours.... Can you hear me, can you
hear? Your father ... who had counted on you...."

Section 26

He went into the far corner of the hockey paddock, and there he moved
about for a while and then stood for a long time holding the fence with
both hands and staring blankly into the darkness. At last he turned
away, and went stumbling and blundering towards the rose garden. A spray
of creeper tore his face and distressed him. He thrust it aside
fretfully, and it scratched his hand. He made his way to the seat in the
arbour, and sat down and whispered a little to himself, and then became
very still with his arm upon the back of the seat and his head upon his
arm.

BOOK III

THE TESTAMENT OF MATCHING'S EASY

CHAPTER THE FIRST

MRS. TEDDY GOES FOR A WALK

Section 1

All over England now, where the livery of mourning had been a rare thing
to see, women and children went about in the October sunshine in new
black clothes. Everywhere one met these fresh griefs, mothers who had
lost their sons, women who had lost their men, lives shattered and hopes
destroyed. The dyers had a great time turning coloured garments to
black. And there was also a growing multitude of crippled and disabled
men. It was so in England, much more was it so in France and Russia, in
all the countries of the Allies,