gabled, half-timbered, its upper story overhanging the doorway, bent
and crippled, though serene, with age, mellow in yellow and russet,
spectacled, as befitted its years, with leaded diamond panes,
crowned deep in secular thatch, smiled with the calm and homely
peace of everlasting things. Its old dignity even covered the perky
gilt inscription over the doorway, telling how James Blake was
licensed to sell a variety of alcoholic beverages. One human figure
alone was visible, as the chairs and mat-laden van slowly turned
from the road toward the horse-trough--that of a young man in
straw hat and grey flannels making a water-colour sketch of the inn.

Barney Bill slid off the footboard, and, looking neither to right
nor left, bolted like a belated crab into the cool recesses of the
bar in search of ambrosia from the blue-and-white china mug. Paul,
also afoot, led Bob to the trough. Bob drank with the lusty
moderation of beasts. When he had assuaged his thirst Paul backed
him into the road and, slinging over his head a comforting nosebag,
left him to his meal.

The young man, sitting on an upturned wooden case, at the extreme
edge of the elm tree's shade, a slender easel before him, a litter
of paraphernalia on the ground by his side, painted assiduously.
Paul idly crept behind him and watched in amazement the smears of
wet colour, after a second or two of apparent irrelevance, take
their place in the essential structure of the drawing. He stood
absorbed. He knew that there were such things as pictures. He knew,
too, that they were made by hands. But he had never seen one in the
making. After a while the artist threw back his head, looked at the
inn and looked at his sketch. There was a hot bit of thatch at the
corner near the orchard, and, below the eaves, bold shadow. The