No one answered.

Only, on the other side of the alley, a few of the beasts ceased their lowing for a while, and, thrusting their faces over the wall, gazed at him with patient wonder.
At the lower end of the alley, where it makes an abrupt bend around the hinder premises of the "Ship" Inn before giving egress upon the street, the Vicar lifted his head and sniffed the morning air.
Surely his nose detected a trace of smoke in it--not the reek of chimneys, but a smoke at once more fragrant and more pungent.

.

.

.
Yes, smoke was drifting high among the elms above the church.
The rooks, too, up there, were cawing loudly and wheeling in circles.
He dropped his gaze to his feet, and once more started back in alarm.
A gutter crossed the alley here, and along it rushed and foamed a dark copper-coloured flood which, in an instant, his eye had traced up to the back doorstep of the "Ship," over which it poured in a cascade.
Beer?
Yes; patently, to sight and smell alike, it was beer.