74 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



He lit a wisp of hay and soon had a fire burning, and 

 brought over some hay and sacks for the second bed. 

 The lights of the farmhouse shone on the other side of 

 the little field behind lilac bushes. The farmhouse pump 

 gave out a cry like a guinea fowl for a few minutes. 

 Then the lights went out. I asked the name of the farm 

 and he told me. 



" I come here almost every summer for the haymak- 

 ing," he said, and detecting my surprise that it was not 

 his first year of haymaking, he continued 



" It is my tenth summer, to be exact" 



He was a man of hardly over thirty, and I noticed 

 that his hands, though small and fine, were rough and 

 warty and dark. Thoughtlessly I remarked that he must 

 find the winter hard if he travelled like this all the year 

 round. 



" Yes," he said, with a sigh, " it is, and that is why I 

 go back in the winter; at least partly why." 



"Go back ? " 



" Yes, to London." 



I was still perplexed. He had the air of a town-bred 

 man of the clerkly class, but no accent, and I could not 

 think what he did in London that was compatible with 

 his present life. 



" Are you a Londoner, then ? " 



"Yes, and no. I was born at the village of - - in 

 Caermarthenshire. My father was a clerk in a coal 

 merchant's office of the neighbouring town. But he 

 thought to better himself, worked hard in the evenings 

 and came to London, when I was seven, for a better- 

 paid post. We lived in Wandsworth in a small street 



