rough; the soil was sand. On the horizon was the grey, melancholy
tower of a deserted mine. Some bird flew with swiftly driving wings,
crying as it went. The smell of the moor was as fresh as though the
foot of man had never crossed it--deserted, but not alone; bare, but not
empty; uninhabited, but peopled; silent, but full of voices.

Jeremy's excitement grew. He knew now how every line of the road would
be. They left the moor and were on the road leading to Rafield. These
were the days before they built the road from Liskane wide enough for
motor-cars and other horrible inventions. Thirty years ago the way was
so narrow that the briars and ferns brushed your face as you passed, and
you could reach out your hand and pluck snap-dragons and dandelions and
fox-gloves. Many roads twisted in and out upon one another; the corners
were so sharp that sometimes the wagonette seemed to hang upon one wheel
as it turned. Still no sight of the sea, but the smell of it now was
everywhere, and sometimes at a sudden bend there would come a faint
beat, beat upon the ear with something rhyming and measured in it, like
the murmur of a sleeping giant.

They came to the bend where the hill suddenly dips at a fearful angle
down into Rafield. Here they turned to the right, deep between edges
again, then through a little copse, and then, as though with a whisk of
the finger, right on to Cow Farm itself.

It was an old square house, deep red brick, with crooked chimneys, and
a stone court in front of it. To either side of the court there were
barns. Behind the house thick trees, clouded with green, showed. In the
middle of the court was a pump, and all about the flagged stones
pigeons were delicately walking. As they drove up, the pigeons rose in
a wheeling flight against the sky now staining faintly with amber; dogs
rushed barking from the barns; a haycart turned the comer, its wheels
creaking, and four little children perched high on the top of the
hay. Then the hall-door opened, and behold Mrs. Monk, Mr. Monk, and,
clustering shyly behind, the little Monks.

In the scene that followed Jeremy was forgotten. He did not know what
it was that made him hang behind the others, but he stood beside the
wagonette, bent down and released Hamlet, and then waited, hiding under
the shadow of the cart. His happiness was almost intolerable; he could
not speak, he could not move, and in the heart of his happiness there
was a strange unhappiness that he