He scribbled on a leaf from his address-book--religiously carried
for six years, but containing only four addresses--this note:
Gone to get stuff for bxfst be right back.--W. W.
and, softly crawling up the straw, left the note by her head.
He hastened to a farm-house. The farm-wife was inclined to
be curious. O curious farm-wife, you of the cream-thick Essex
speech and the shuffling feet, you were brave indeed to face
Bill Wrenn the Great, with his curt self-possession, for he was
on a mission for Istra, and he cared not for the goggling eyes
of all England. What though he was a bunny-faced man with an
innocuous mustache? Istra would be awakening hungry. That was
why he bullied you into selling him a stew-pan and a bundle of
faggots along with the tea and eggs and a bread loaf and a jar
of the marmalade your husband's farm had been making these two
hundred years. And you should have had coffee for him, not tea,
woman of Essex.
When he returned to their outdoor inn the late afternoon glow
lay along the rich fields that sloped down from their
well-concealed nook.
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