“You mean the Spanish fleet, sir?” said Mr. Garlick.

He nodded.

“It is not that I look for final deliverance from Spain,” he said.  “I have no wish to be aught but an Englishman, as I said to Mr. Bassett a while ago.  But I think the fleet will distract her Grace for a while; and it may very well mean that we have better treatment hereafter.”

“What news is there, sir?”

“I hear that the Londoners buzz continually with false alarms.  It was thought that the fleet might arrive on any day; but I understand that the fishing-boats say that nothing as yet been seen.  By the end of the month, I daresay, we shall have news.”

So they talked pleasantly in the shade till the shadows began to lengthen.  They were far enough here from the sea-coast to feel somewhat detached from the excitement that was beginning to seethe in the south.  At Plymouth, it was said, all had been in readiness for a month or two past; at Tilbury, my lord Leicester was steadily gathering troops.  But here, inland, it was more of an academic question.  The little happenings in Derby; the changes of weather in the farms; the deaths of old people from the summer heats—­these things were far more vital and significant than the distant thunders of Spain.  A beacon or two had been piled on the hills, by order of the authorities, to pass on the news when it should come; a few lads had disappeared from the countryside to drill in Derby marketplace; but except for these things, all was very much as it had been from the beginning.  The expected catastrophe meant little more to such folk than the coming of the Judgment Day—­certain, but infinitely remote from the grasp of the imagination.

* * * * *

The three were talking of Robin as they came down towards the house for supper, and, as they turned the corner, he himself was at that moment dismounting.

He looked surprisingly cool and well-trimmed, considering his ride up the hot valley.  He had taken his journey easily, he said, as he had had a long day yesterday.

“And I made a round to pay a visit to Mistress Manners,” he said.  “I found her a-bed when I got there; and Mrs. Alice says she will not be at mass to-morrow.  She stood too long in the sun yesterday, at the carrying of the hay; it is no more than that.”

“Mistress Manners is a marvel to me,” said Garlick, as they went towards the house.  “Neither wife nor nun.  And she rules her house like a man; and she knows if a priest lift his little finger in Derby.  She sent me my whole itinerary for this last circuit of mine; and every point fell out as she said.”

* * * * *