1 88 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



guesses of fancy, lest they should bring some old un- 

 pleasant truth in their train; but if the fancy will thread 

 the alley and pass the last of the shadows it is into some 

 such lane as this that it would gladly emerge, to come at 

 last upon the pure wild. It seemed that I had come 

 upon the pure wild in this lane, for in a bay of turf 

 alongside the track, just large enough for a hut and 

 thickly sheltered by an oak, though the south-west sun 

 crept in, was a camp. Under the oak and at the edge 

 of the tangled bramble and brier and bracken was a low 

 purple light from those woodside flowers, self-heal and 

 wood-betony. A perambulator with a cabbage in it stood 

 at one corner; leaning against it was an ebony-handled 

 umbrella and two or three umbrella- frames; underneath 

 it an old postman's bag containing a hammer and other 

 tools. Close by stood half a loaf on a newspaper, several 

 bottles of bright water, a black pot of potatoes ready for 

 boiling, a tin of water steaming against a small fire of 

 hazel twigs. Out on the sunny grass two shirts were 

 drying. In the midst was the proprietor, his name re- 

 vealed in fresh chalk on the side of his perambulator : 

 "John Clark, Hampshire." 



He had spent his last pence on potatoes and had 

 been given the cabbage. No one would give him work 

 on a Sunday. He had no home, no relations. Being deaf, 

 he did not look for company. So he stood up, to get dry 

 and to tfimk, think, think, his hands on his hips, while 

 he puffed at an empty pipe. During his meditation a 

 snail had crawled half-way up his trousers, and was now 

 all but down again. He was of middle height and build, 

 the crookedest of men, yet upright, like a branch of 

 oak which comes straight with all its twistings. His head 



