where the world seemed hardly yet
awake. The road ran across a wide common, where the cows and horses
and geese wandered about pretty much as they chose, and the
blackberries grew as they grow only on waste ground. The blackberry
season was pretty nearly over, and the damp had taken the taste out of
those which the village children had left, but the dewy nights were
still warm enough to bring up the mushrooms like fairy tables in all
directions, and there was at least one gatherer from the village who
had been astir an hour ago, for the common was a well-known mushroom
ground, and early birds had the best chance. He was coming back now
with a goodly basketful, shaking showers of dew off the grass at every
step and leaving a track of footmarks behind him. Through the mist he
looked a sort of giant, but he was only a tall, sturdy lad of
seventeen, in a fustian jacket and the wide hat which countrymen used
to wear in the days of our grandfathers. He turned off the common
before he reached the village and went down a little lane, at the end
of which stood a small gabled house, in a garden where the autumn
flowers hung their heads under the heavy dew. There was a paddock
behind the house where a cow was feeding, and a gate led through a yard
to the back door, and thither the boy was turning when he noticed a
little girl in homespun frock and sun-bonnet leaning over the garden
gate, looking up rather wistfully at the shuttered windows of the
house. She gave a great start as the boy came behind her and laid his
hand suddenly on her shoulder.

'Now then, Nance,' he said severely, 'what are you about, disturbing
the place at this time in the morning?'

The little girl shook his hand off with an impatient shrug.

'What be you about, Pete, starting me like that? I'm not doing nothing
nor disturbing nobody. I can look at the cottage, I suppose, without
you to call me up for it?'

'Mother'll be fine and angry when she hears what you've been at,' said
the boy, 'peeping and prying on the young ladies, and them in trouble.'

Nancy put up her pretty lip with the injured look of a spoilt child.
'I'm not peeping nor prying nor hurting nobody, and, if I am, what are
you doing, I should like to know?' Then, as she noticed his basket,
she clapped her hands with a little triumphant laugh.

'I know what 'tis you're after,' she cried; 'you've been off and got
them mushrooms, and you've brought them for the young ladies so as yo