120 IDLEHURST: 



colours and turning of lines must be a mean business 

 at best. And before the last chord, Mrs. Lydia 

 turned round with a laugh to Mrs. Kitty ; they really 

 must go, and she would send the blankets (or some 

 such parish paraphernalia) by the boy the first thing 

 in the morning. 



In the dusk I walked out northwards towards 

 Sheringham, meeting the customary Saturday night 

 procession of outliers coming down for their weekly 

 shopping in Arnington, and the earlier buyers already 

 going homewards. I overtook Mrs. Bish in her 

 ancient black, a vast basket on arm, full of the 

 Sunday's flap-of-beef, the half pound of tea, the 

 currants, and the inevitable bottle of physic. 



Then came several faces I knew, men from the 

 nearer farms ; others that were strange, from the far 

 corners of the parish a little man, toothless and 

 knock-kneed, with thin black beard and yellow whites 

 to his eyes two stout young men in tail coats and 

 gaiters, one of these a very common type in Arnington, 

 with white eyelashes and light bushy whiskers on his 

 florid cheeks ; the other was playing an accordion, 

 which, perhaps, on the whole, may be called the 

 national instrument. After these came a farmer's 

 girl, who might be of any age between twenty and 

 forty, slight, anaemic, formless, dressed in a forlorn 



