It was half-past eleven, which is a late hour for the clergy to breakfast; but this young man appeared to be suffering from no qualms of conscience on the subject. He was making an excellent breakfast and reading the Henley results with a mixture of rapture and longing.

He had just removed the "Sportsman" from the convenient b.u.t.tress of the teapot and subst.i.tuted "Punch" when he became aware that day had turned to night. Looking up he perceived that his open window, which was rather small and of the cas.e.m.e.nt variety, was completely blocked by a huge, shapeless, and opaque ma.s.s. Next moment the ma.s.s resolved itself into an animal of enormous size and surprising appearance, which fell heavily into the room, and

Like a stream that, spouting from a cliff, Fails in mid-air, but, gathering at the base, Remakes itself,

rose to its feet and, advancing to the table, laid a heavy head on the white cloth and lovingly pa.s.sed its tongue--which resembled that of the great anteater--round a cold chicken conveniently adjacent.

Five minutes later the window framed another picture--this time a girl of twenty, white-clad and wearing a powder-blue felt hat, caught up on one side by a silver buckle which twinkled in the hot morning sun. The curate started to his feet. Excalibur, who was now lying on the hearthrug dismembering the chicken, thumped his tail guiltily on the floor, but made no attempt to rise.

"I am very sorry," said Eileen, "but I am afraid my dog is trespa.s.sing.

May I call him out?"

"Certainly!" said the curate. "But"--he racked his brains to devise some means of delaying the departure of this radiant, fragrant vision--"he is not the least in the way. I am very glad of his company; it was most neighborly of him to call. After all, I suppose he is one of my parishioners. And--and"--he blushed--"I hope you are, too."

Eileen gave him her most entrancing smile, and from that hour the curate ceased to be his own master.

"I suppose you are Mr. Gilmore," said Eileen.

"Yes. I have been here only three weeks and I have not met every one yet."

"I have been away for two months," Eileen mentioned.

"I thought you must have been," said the curate, rather subtly for him.

"I think my brother-in-law called on you a few days ago," continued Eileen, on whom the curate"s last remark had made a most favorable impression. She mentioned my name.

"I was going to return the call this very afternoon," said the curate.

And he firmly believed that he was speaking the truth. "Won"t you come in? We have an excellent chaperon," indicating Excalibur. "I will come and open the door."

"Well, he certainly won"t come out unless I come and fetch him,"

admitted Eileen thoughtfully.

A moment later the curate was at the front door and led his visitor across the little hall into the sitting-room. He had not been absent more than thirty seconds, but during that time a plateful of sausages had mysteriously disappeared; and, as they entered, Excalibur was apologetically settling down on the hearthrug with a cottage loaf between his paws.

Eileen uttered cries of dismay and apology, but the curate would have none of them.

"My fault entirely!" he insisted. "I have no right to be breakfasting at this hour; but this is my day off. You see I take early Service every morning at seven; but on Wednesdays we cut it out--omit it and have full Matins at ten. So I get up at half-past nine, take Service at ten, and come back to my rooms at eleven and have breakfast. It is my weekly treat."

"You deserve it," said Eileen feelingly. Her religious exercises were limited to going to church on Sunday morning and coming out, if possible, after the Litany. "And how do you like Much Moreham?"

"I did not like it at all when I came," said the curate, "but recently I have begun to enjoy myself immensely." He did not say how recently.

"Were you in London before?"

"Yes--in the East End. It was pretty hard work, but a useful experience.

I feel rather lost here during my spare time. I get so little exercise.

In London I used to slip away for an occasional outing in a Leander scratch eight, and that kept me fit. I am inclined," he added ruefully, "to put on flesh."

"Leander? Are you a Blue?"

The curate nodded.

"You know about rowing, I see," he said appreciatively. "The worst of rowing," he continued, "is that it takes up so much of a man"s time that he has no opportunity of practicing anything else--cricket, for instance. All curates ought to be able to play cricket. I do my best; but there isn"t a single boy in the Sunday School who can"t bowl me.

It"s humiliating!"

"Do you play tennis at all?" asked Eileen.

"Yes, in a way."

"I am sure my sister will be pleased if you come and have a game with us some afternoon."

The enraptured curate had already opened his mouth to accept this demure invitation when Excalibur, rising from the hearthrug, stretched himself luxuriously and wagged his tail, thereby removing three pipes, an inkstand, a tobacco jar, and a half-completed sermon from the writing table.

V

EXCALIBUR was heavily overworked in his new role of chaperon during the next three or four weeks, and any dog less ready to oblige than himself might have felt a little aggrieved at the treatment to which he was subjected.

There was the case of the tennis lawn, for instance. He had always regarded this as his own particular sanctuary, dedicated to reflection and repose; but now the net was stretched across it and Eileen and the curate performed antics all over the court with rackets and small white b.a.l.l.s which, though they did not hurt Excalibur, kept him awake. It did not occur to him to convey himself elsewhere, for his mind moved slowly; and the united blandishments of the players failed to bring the desirability of such a course home to him. He continued to lie in his favorite spot on the sunny side of the court, looking injured but forgiving, or slumbering perseveringly amid the storm that raged round him.

It was quite impossible to move Excalibur once he had decided to remain where he was; so Eileen and the curate agreed to regard him as a sort of artificial excrescence, like the b.u.t.tress in a fives court. If the ball hit him, as it frequently did, the player waiting for it was at liberty either to play it or claim a let. This arrangement added a piquant and pleasing variety to what is too often--especially when indulged in by mediocre players--a very dull game.

Worse was to follow, however. One day Eileen and the curate conducted Excalibur to a neighboring mountain range--at least, so it appeared to Excalibur--and played another ball game. This time they employed long sticks with iron heads, and two b.a.l.l.s, which, though they were much smaller than tennis b.a.l.l.s, were incredibly hard and painful. Excalibur, though willing to help and anxious to please, could not supervise both the b.a.l.l.s at once. As sure as he ran to retrieve one the other came after him and took him unfairly in the rear. Excalibur was the gentlest of creatures, but the most perfect gentleman has his dignity to consider.

After having been struck for the third time by one of these b.a.l.l.s he whipped round, picked it up in his mouth and gave it a tiny pinch, just as a warning. At least, he thought it was a tiny pinch. The ball retaliated with unexpected ferocity. It twisted and turned. It emitted long, snaky spirals of some elastic substance, which clogged his teeth and tickled his throat and wound themselves round his tongue and nearly choked him. Panic-stricken, he ran to his mistress, who, with weeping and with laughter, removed the writhing horror from his jaws and comforted him with fair words.

After that Excalibur realized that it is wiser to walk behind golfers than in front of them. It was a boring business, though, and very exhausting, for he loathed exercise of every kind; and his only periods of repose were the occasions on which the expedition came to a halt on certain small, flat lawns, each of which contained a hole with a flag in it.

Here Excalibur would lie down, with the contented sigh of a tired child, and go to sleep. As he almost invariably lay down between the hole and the ball, the players agreed to regard him as a bunker. Eileen putted round him; but the curate--who had little regard for the humbler works of creation, Excalibur thought--used to take his mashie and attempt a lofting shot, an enterprise in which he almost invariably failed, to Excalibur"s great inconvenience.

Country walks were more tolerable, for Eileen"s supervision of his movements, which was usually marked by an officious severity, was sensibly relaxed on these days and Excalibur found himself at liberty to range abroad amid the heath and through the coppices, engaged in a pastime that he imagined was hunting.

One hot afternoon, wandering into a clearing, he encountered a hare. The hare, which was suffering from extreme panic, owing to a terrifying noise behind it,--the blast of the newest and most vulgar motor horn, to be precise,--was bolting right across the clearing. After the manner of hares where objects directly in front of them are concerned, the fugitive entirely failed to perceive Excalibur and, indeed, ran right underneath him on its way to cover. Excalibur was so unstrung by this adventure that he ran back to where he had left Eileen and the curate.

They were sitting side by side on the gra.s.s and the curate was holding Eileen"s hand.

Excalibur advanced on them thankfully and indicated by an ingratiating smile that a friendly remark or other recognition of his presence would be gratefully received; but neither took the slightest notice of him.

They continued to gaze straight before them in a mournful and abstracted fashion. They looked not so much at Excalibur as through him. First the hare, then Eileen and the curate! Excalibur began to fear that he had become invisible, or at least transparent. Greatly agitated he drifted away into a neighboring plantation full of young pheasants. Here he encountered a keeper, who was able to dissipate his gloomy suspicions for him without any difficulty whatsoever. But Eileen and the curate sat on.

"A hundred pounds a year!" repeated the curate. "A pa.s.s degree and no influence! I can"t preach and I have no money of my own. Dearest, I ought never to have told you."

"Told me what?" inquired Eileen softly. She knew quite well; but she was a woman, and a woman can never let well enough alone.

The curate, turning to Eileen, delivered himself of a statement of three words. Eileen"s reply was a softly whispered _Tu quoque!_

"It had to happen, dear," she added cheerfully, for she did not share the curate"s burden of responsibility in the matter. "If you had not told me we should have been miserable separately. Now that you have told me, we can be miserable together. And when two people who--who--" She hesitated.