He smiled; the narrow smile of small, fine lips, with a queer, winged
movement of the moustache, a flutter of dark down. She saw his eyes, hard
and keen, dark blue, like the blade of a new knife.

"No. I wish it was my farm. Why?"

She could see now it wasn't. He was out tramping. The corner of a
knapsack bulged over his right shoulder. Rough greenish coat and
stockings--dust-coloured riding breeches--

But there was something about him. Something tall and distant; slender
and strange, like the fir-trees.

"Because whoever's farm it is I want to see him."

"You won't see him. There isn't anybody there."

"Oh."

He lingered.

"Do you know who he is?" she said.

"No. I don't know anything. I don't even know where I am. But I hope it's
Bourton-on-the-Hill."

"I'm afraid it isn't. It's Stow-on-the-Wold."

He laughed and shifted his knapsack to his left shoulder, and held up his