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was quite unintentional, but I can't help feeling a bit cut up about it." Bess was trembling as she stared from one to the other of us. She began to brush the hay off her dress and, as we walked away, the Flight-Lieutenant told us that he had accidentally used live instead of blank ammunition in the machine-gun whose performance he had been demonstrating. "The old boy took it right in the face," he said, "and went over like a ninepin." He smiled as he recalled the scene to his memory, then added, in a more serious voice: "It was a really bad show." I could think of nothing but of the appearance of my guardian's face that morning at breakfast. Still the story that I had heard seemed unreal to me, but as we went through the turnstile I could see a large crowd around the tent where the machine-gun demonstration had been given. People made way for us as we approached and, without noticing whether the others were following, I went through the crowd to a space in the centre, where I saw the Rector's wife, the Squire's sister, and an officer from the Aerodrome standing above a body prostrate on the ground. A national flag had been thrown over the face and the upper part of the body, but I could easily recognize the watchchain, the trousers, and the boots of my guardian. I fell down on my knees, with the idea of removing the cloth from his face, but a Pilot Officer held me by the shoulders and pulled me to my feet. "Steady, steady, old man," he said. The Rector's wife put her arms round me, and I held her tight, fancying that it was Bess whom I was holding. I kissed her on the ear and then looked up and round at the circle of silent respectful faces that surrounded us. The Pilot Officer began talking to me. He gave further details of the accident and made suggestions as to the transport of the body.
    CHAPTER V
    The Squire

IN OUR HOUSE, as I should say in many others, death had not been in the past a frequent topic of conversation; but now, with a dead body in an upper room lying beneath a sheet, both the presence and the certainty of death were never, during the days that preceded the funeral, far from our minds. It was not only when at meals our eyes strayed to the Rector's chair and the polished surface of the table where in the past knives, spoons, and forks had been set; or when, passing through the hall, one observed walking-sticks with the handles worn smooth by the grip of a hand whose muscles had stiffened for the last time; indeed these accidental and sudden reminders were hardly necessary. Everywhere in the house, it seemed to me, could be felt the influence and the presence of the one cold upstairs room in which the Rector's remains lay extended on a bed. Nor did it seem to anyone that there was anything either noble or sanctified about that presence and that influence. It would have been better, perhaps, if the Rector's features had been left intact. Some effect of dignity or of the statuesque might then have been achieved. As it was it was only the pulp of a man that lay under the white sheet, unrecognizable except to those who possessed special knowledge. And the presence in the house of this shattered body produced in us, I think, feelings rather of horror than of affection. We knew, of course, that any corpse, however dignified, would not remain for long a lovely sight; and yet we would have wished to be able to look once more and for a short time at features that would have seemed familiar to us, however unfamiliar, in real fact, their lifelessness would have been. But what we had was nothing beautiful; more a trophy of an abstract power than a reminder of the living. So, though I now felt as much affection for the dead man as I had ever felt, I avoided the room where he lay. His wife and the Squire's sister would sometimes sing hymns there, but neither the Squire nor I joined them in these activities. The Squire, indeed, had never been inside the room at all. He had stood in the doorway, but when invited to enter