The clock showed
three minutes past nine.
The electric cars to and from the town of Turnhill were rumbling past
the very door of the Morfes every five minutes, and would continue to
do so till midnight. But Silverhays is a mining village a couple of
miles beyond Turnhill, and the service between Turnhill and Silverhays
ceases before ten o'clock. Eva's father was a colliery manager who lived
on the outskirts of Silverhays.
"I've got a piece of news," said Eva.
"Yes?" said Mary Morfe
Mr Morfe was taciturn. He stooped to nourish the fire.
"About Mr Loggerheads," said Eva, and stared straight at Mary Morfe.
"About Mr Loggerheads!" Mary Morfe echoed, and stared back at Eva. And
the atmosphere seemed to have been thrown into a strange pulsation.
Here perhaps I ought to explain that it was not the peculiarity of Mr
Loggerheads' name that produced the odd effect. Loggerheads is a local
term for a harmless plant called the knapweed _(centaurea nigra_), and
it is also the appellation of a place and of quite excellent people, and
no one regards it as even the least bit odd.
"I'm told," said Eva, "that he's going into the Hanbridge Choir!"
Mr Loggerheads was the principal tenor of the Bursley Glee and Madrigal
Club.
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