mbling in its progress a very infirm
crab in a hurry.

As a fact, the Registrar wore a silk hat, a suit of black
West-of-England broadcloth, a watch-chain made out of his dead wife's
hair, and two large seals that clashed together when he moved.
His face was wide and round, with a sanguine complexion, grey
side-whiskers, and a cicatrix across the chin. He had shaved in a
hurry that morning, for the wedding was early, and took place on the
extreme verge of his district. His is a beautiful office--recording
day by day the solemnest and most mysterious events in nature. Yet,
standing at the cross-roads, between down and woodland, under an April
sky full of sun and south-west wind, he threw the ugliest shadow in
the landscape.

The road towards the coast dipped--too steeply for tight boots--down a
wooded coombe, and he followed it, treading delicately. The hollow of
the V ahead, where the hills overlapped against the pale blue, was
powdered with a faint brown bloom, soon to be green--an infinity
of bursting buds. The larches stretched their arms upwards, as men
waking. The yellow was out on the gorse, with a heady scent like a
pineapple's, and between the bushes spread the grey film of coming
blue-bells. High up, the pines sighed along the ridge, turning paler;
and far down, where the brook ran, a mad duet was going on between
thrush and chaffinch--"_Cheer up, cheer up, Queen!" "Clip clip, clip,
and kiss me--Sweet_!"--one against the other.

Now, the behaviour of the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages
changed as he descended the valley. At first he went from side to
side, because the loose stones were sharp and lay unevenly; soon he
zig-zagged for another purpose--to peer into the bank for violets, to
find a gap between the trees where, by bending down with a hand
on each knee and his head tilted back, he could see the primroses
stretching in broad sheets to the very edge of the pine-woods. By
frequent tilting his collar broke from its stud and his silk hat
settled far back on his neck. Next he unbuttoned his waistcoat and
loosened his braces; but no, he could not skip--his boots were too
tight. He looked at each tree as he passed. "If I could only see"--he
muttered. "I'll swear there used to be one on the right, just here."

But he could not find it here--perhaps his memory misgave him--and
presently turned with decision, climbed the low fence on his left,
between him and the hollow of the coombe, and dropped