But if the Peculiar Faith was thus involved in scandal, Churchmanship did not fail to provide its quota of gossip to the months that ended a fateful year. It was not only that Miss Blanche of Foxearth Farm had collected the scalp of yet another suitor (and one who, as Bundock’s own eyes had witnessed at the Flippance wedding-feast, had been wantonly encouraged); it was that the minx, whose brother Barnaby went about in October saying Will Flynt was not good enough for her, became openly engaged in November to that obviously inferior specimen, Mr. Elijah Skindle. And old Giles Purley, tired of vagaries so incongruous in a churchwarden’s family, was, said Bundock’s father, imperiously hurrying on the match.

Although it was the postman who was the reference on the liberties permitted to Will at the wedding breakfast, it was his bedridden parent who became the leading authority on the new Blanche engagement. That was because Barnaby, disappointed of the wider life of the Tony Flip theatre, with no winter prospect but that of chopping down undergrowth and laying it out in long rows for hoops and hurdles, and receiving no consolation from Jinny when their vehicles passed, had discovered in the postman’s youngest sister a being even more beauteous, and, when he had to take the trap into Chipstone, never failed in devoted attendance on the sick-bed. It was thus that all the world knew that the Flippances had not written once from Boulogne, not even to send on the promised cheque for the wedding-breakfast.

But even Bundock’s father had not the true history of the engagement, constructing as he did from Barnaby’s chatter a facile version of a “better match”: how dear ’Lijah was coining money far quicker than Will with his petty fares and commissions, and fast ousting Jorrow, and with what elegant furniture he was fitting up the bridal bedchamber. Barnaby himself did not know that with the gradual vanishing of his sister’s theatrical and operatic hopes, Blanche, immeasurably more embittered and disillusioned than himself, had sought in vain to win back Will, and had thrown herself first strategically and then despairingly into the arms of Elijah, who, summoned professionally to the Farm, had found unhoped-for consolation for his lost Jinny. Tongues would have wagged still more joyously had it been known that Will for his part was trying to win back Jinny, who in her turn was as adamantine to him as he to Blanche. The two Carriers met not seldom on the miry, yellow-carpeted roads awhirl with flying leaves, or in the rainy courtyard of “The Black Sheep,” and for each the scene at once shifted to a sunny tangled fairyland where the wood-pigeon purred, and oak, elm, beech, and silver birch in ample leaf rose in a crescent, with crisp beech-nuts underfoot, and baby bracken. But not even Nip could effect any visible communication. Much more gracious was Jinny to Barnaby, as soon as she was relieved of his “passing” adoration.

The weather improved for a space in mid-November. There was a bite in the air and the sheep-bells tinkled keenly from the pastures. The morning hoar-frosts held till noon. A great red ball of sun and a pale yellow crescent moon would shine together in the heavens, early sunsets seen through bare branches seemed to fill them with a golden fruitage that changed slowly to lemon, and the haystacks rose magically through enchanted hazes. But the cold only made Jinny hungrier and the earth-beauty sadder. It was as if she had already forgotten the blessing of Methusalem’s return, and as if carrying was not after all the heart’s deepest dream—especially with nothing to carry.

It was a relief to be blocked occasionally by Master Peartree’s sheep, billowing along like a yellow Nile, and to exchange conversation with the shepherd, now at the most leisured moment of his year. Patiently she would hear how the sheep got ravenous in the high cold winds, why he was driving them out of yon danger-zone of rape and turnip, and how the only real anxiety between now and Christmas was that one might fall on its back, or the hunt frighten the ewes: for soon somehow he would be speaking of his next-wall neighbours in Frog Farm, and somehow the family would always narrow to Will. “A grumpy, runty lad,” he described him once. “Sometimes he goos about full o’ mum: other times you can yer him through the wall grizzlin’ and growlin’ like my ould dog, time my poor missus had her fust baiby. He’d ha’ torn the child to pieces,” he went on, diverging into an exposition of how sheep-dogs had to be trained to prepare for babies. But she cut it as short as she dared, inquiring, “But who’d he be jealous of?” “The baiby—Oi’m explainin’ to you!” he said. “No, I mean, who’s young Mr. Flynt jealous of?” she asked, wondering how Will could know that she had been shedding such gracious smiles on Barnaby. And when the shepherd replied “’Lijah Skindle, in course,” she winced perceptibly. But though the sting of the reply rankled, she was not so sure as the rest of the world that it was true.