Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/27

 had accepted as part of the enigma of life until that fateful August 4th, 1914, when he had enlisted.

That was four and a half years ago, and now, having thoroughly earned the disapproval of his aunt, he had turned his face to the open road, a vagabond; but a free man. The blue sky would be above him; he had pictured it all, the white flecks of cloud swimming across the sun day by day, and the winking of the stars by night. There would be the apple and the plum-blossom, the pear and the cherry. There would be the birds, the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep. Then there would be the voices of the haymakers, the throb of the mowing-machines and the rumble of the heavily laden wains, as they grumbled their way to the rick-yard. The night sounds, the sudden whirr of a frightened pheasant, the hoot of some marauding owl, the twitter of a dreaming thrush; he had realised them all, expected them all—everything but the rain.

He had foreseen rain, it is true, the storm, the flood even; but they had always presented themselves to his mind's eye with himself safely quartered in some comfortable old inn.

"Nature discourages eccentricity."

Nature was discouraging him by flooding the earth on the first day of his adventure.

"I wonder what Aunt Caroline would say if she saw me now?" he muttered.

He laughed aloud at the thought.

Suddenly he stopped, not only laughing, but