(4/13) Battles at Thrush Green Read Online Free PDF Page B

Ella.
    Her friend had produced the battered tobacco tin so familiar from times past. Ella began to roll one of her disreputable cigarettes.
    'Well, what brings you over?' she asked, licking the edge of the paper.
    'Dotty,' said Dimity. 'She's been left a car –'
    'I know,' replied Ella, fumbling for matches.
    'And she really can't drive, you know, and we're all so worried. Charles and I wondered if you could have a word with her, and persuade her to let you go with her –'
    A cloud of pungent smoke polluted the morning air before Ella replied.
    'You're too late, Dim my girl,' she said, slapping Dimity's thin thigh painfully. 'I saw her going down to catch the nine-thirty coach, case in hand.'
    'But she said Friday!' cried Dimity, appalled. 'And today's Thursday!'
    'I expect she got wind of all the fuss,' said Ella, 'and decided to get away while the going was good.'
    She struggled to her feet and retrieved the basket.
    'Can't say I blame her,' she puffed, her grizzled head now wreathed in blue smoke. 'Dotty knows her way around for all her scatter-brained ways.'
    She began to lead the way to the kitchen.
    'You mark my words,' said Ella, 'she'll arrive back at Thrush Green safe and sound. They say the devil looks after his own, don't they?'
    Later, beans in hand, and Ella's dire words ringing in her head, Dimity returned to the rectory to break the news to Charles.
    She refrained from quoting Ella exactly. At times, she felt, her old friend expressed herself rather too forcefully. The rector's comment was typical.
    'We can only hope that Connie will be given strength to prevail. It will need great courage to oppose Dotty.'
    'It will need more to drive with her!' retorted his wife with spirit.

4 Driving Trouble
    T HE matter of St Andrew's churchyard continued to perplex the rector and the parochial church council.
    At an emergency meeting it was decided to put up one or two notices in public spots asking for volunteers to help to tidy the graveyard. The rector also drafted a paragraph for inclusion in the parish magazine.
    Reaction was varied, and mainly negative.
    'What's old Piggott get paid for then?' queried one belligerently.
    'He's past it,' said another, more kindly disposed.
    'Then he should pack it in, and let someone else get the money,' retorted the first speaker.
    'I reckons the council ought to keep it tidy. What do we pay rates for?' demanded another, reading the notice which Harold Shoosmith had pinned up in the bar of "The Two Pheasants."
    'Don't talk daft!' begged a stout-drinker. 'It's got nothing to do with the council!'
    'Well, I've been a Wesleyan all my life. I don't see why I should clean up for the C. of Es.'
    'You'll be put in there, won't you?' demanded another. 'Whatever you be, you'll end up there. Why your old ma and pa are up agin the wall already! Don't matter what church or chapel we goes to, that's the common burial ground. I reckons we all ought to lend a hand.'
    But not many agreed with the last speaker, and as he was a shepherd, bent and weatherbeaten, and now in his eighty-fifth year, he was not in a position to engage personally in the project.
    The rector, experienced in the ways of men, was not surprised at the lack of response, although he was disappointed.
    'It seems sad,' he said to Harold Shoosmith, 'that none of the younger men has offered. In fact, the only people willing to do anything are you, and Percy Hodge, the farmer, and myself.'
    'I really thought we might get some volunteers from the new housing estate at Nod,' replied Harold. 'Plenty of able-bodied chaps up there.'
    'They have their new gardens to see to,' said Charles charitably. 'And most of them do over-time, you know, to make ends meet. They are rather hard-pressed. It's quite understandable.'
    'You're a good deal more forgiving than I am,' said Harold. 'Young Doctor Lovell told me he could offer an evening a week, and if he can, then why can't others?'
    'Better one willing fighter than ten men press-ganged into the