see the Dodder.

It was too late and we were too tired to carry out our project of
visiting the Pigeon House. We had to be home before four o'clock
lest our adventure should be discovered. Mahony looked
regretfully at his catapult and I had to suggest going home by train
before he regained any cheerfulness. The sun went in behind some
clouds and left us to our jaded thoughts and the crumbs of our
provisions.

There was nobody but ourselves in the field. When we had lain on
the bank for some time without speaking I saw a man approaching
from the far end of the field. I watched him lazily as I chewed one
of those green stems on which girls tell fortunes. He came along
by the bank slowly. He walked with one hand upon his hip and in
the other hand he held a stick with which he tapped the turf lightly.
He was shabbily dressed in a suit of greenish-black and wore what
we used to call a jerry hat with a high crown. He seemed to be
fairly old for his moustache was ashen-grey. When he passed at
our feet he glanced up at us quickly and then continued his way.
We followed him with our eyes and saw that when he had gone on
for perhaps fifty paces he turned about and began to retrace his
steps. He walked towards us very slowly, always tapping the
ground with his stick, so slowly that I thought he was looking for
something in the grass.

He stopped when he came level with us and bade us goodday. We
answered him and he sat down beside us on the slope slowly and
with great care. He began to talk of the weather, saying that it
would be a very hot summer and adding that the seasons had