Chapter XV. The Storm

Slowly the evening was deepening into night, but still the glow from the setting sun lingered in the western sky. The brave little songster had gone from the top of the elm tree, but from the shrubbery behind the church a whippoorwill was beginning to tune his pipe.

"Oh, listen to the darling!" cried Patricia. "I haven't heard one for a long, long time."

"There used to be a great many in the shrubbery here, and in the old days the woods nearby were full of them in the evenings," said Mrs. Templeton.

As they sat listening for the whippoorwill's voice, they became aware of other sounds floating up to their ears from the town. The hum of passing motors, the high, shrill laughter of children playing in the streets, the clang of the locomotive bell from the railroad station, all softened by distance. But as they listened there came another sound like nothing they had ever heard in that place before. A strange, confused rumbling, with cries jutting out through the dull, rolling noise. A little later came the faint clash of rhythmic, tumultuous cheering. Patricia's quick ears were the first to catch the sound.

"Hush!" she cried. "What is that noise?"

Again came the rumbling sound, punctuated with quick volleys of cheering. The men glanced at each other. They knew well that sound, a sound they had often heard during the stirring days of the war, in the streets of the great cities across the seas, and in other places, too, where men were wont to crowd. As they listened in tense silence, there came the throbbing of a drum.

"My dear," said Mrs. Templeton faintly to her eldest daughter, "I think I shall go in."

At once Hugh offered her his arm, while Adrien took the other, and together they led her slowly into the house.

Meanwhile the others tumbled into Rupert's car and motored down to the gate, and there waited the approach of what seemed to be a procession of some sort or other.

At the gate Dr. Templeton, returning from his pastor visitations, found them standing.

"Come here, Papa!" cried Patricia. "Let us wait here. There is something coming up the street."

"But what is it?" asked Dr. Templeton. "Does anybody know?"

"I guess it is a strikers' parade, sir. I heard that they were to organise a march-out to-night. It is rather a ridiculous thing."

Through the deepening twilight they could see at the head of the column and immediately before the band, a double platoon of young girls dressed in white, under the command of an officer distinguished from the others by her red sash, all marching with a beautiful precision to the tap of the drum. As the head of the column drew opposite, Patricia touched Vic's arm.

"Vic!" she cried. "Look! Look at that girl! It is Annette!"