Father’s Birthday . Day of intercession for Peace, Partial Eclispe of the Sun.

Service at 8 AM.

Great excitement here in the morning over a suspicious looking man. He was seen by Eli Guscott yest. eve. at Yalford & when spoken to did not reply. He was noted also by others including young Tom Yole who is staying at Kelly Mill, who saw him at 8 this morning.

Reginald went down to Lifton & fetched up a policeman who interviewed Eli but could not get in a word, owing to the flow of words.

The man was last seen in the direction of Bradstone.

Mary & I went into drill & arrived ½ hour late, having mistaken the time. Met W Reg at Terrators, Lovely drive home over Heathfield, glorious sky.

At 8 service of intercession, very muddly. Poor Father could not hear anything. Neither could he see as the lamp near us flared up & had to be lowered. The Minister was very wandering & read endless extracts from the papers of various people’s sermons.

If only we could have had the Litany or some straight forward service it would have been much nicer.

News that the Germans have taken Brussels.

Reginald says that it is does not want for much but for all that it seems terrible.

There are also awful accounts of the way in which the Prussians burn & devastate whole villages & murdering women & children.